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FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 



AND 



HOW I MADE IT 



FIVE YEARS' TIME, STARTING WITHOUT 
CAPITAL. 



EDWARD MITCHELL. 



>X«c 



LOEING, Publisher, 

319 Washington Street, 
BOSTON. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 

A. K. LOEING, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 



FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR ; 

AND 

HOW I MADE IT. 



*>Kc 



CHAPTER I. 

EARLY HISTORY — LIFE IN NEW YORK — WHAT IT LED TO. 

In 1856, misfortune overtook my father in his mercan- 
tile pursuits, and avaricious creditors eagerly gathered up 
the very last item he had accumulated for years. 

Consequently I was forced to give up the cherished idea 
of a college education, and go forth to grapple with the 
stern realities of life. I had been exceedingly fond of my 
books, and learned readily ; this was all my stock in store, 
with which to go forth to make my way in the world. 

Born and bred in a western country town, I had large 
ideas of a city, and was convinced it was the great field 
into which one must only enter to come out well supplied 
with earthly goods. 

Led by this vague guiding-star I went forth, believing 
the great city of New York should be the Mecca towards 
which I must journey, and there find my fortune. I 



6 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

arrived in New York, and found myself a stranger in a 
strange land. Without a trade, I had nothing to recom- 
mend me ; no friends to intercede for me. Without any 
particular knowledge of anything whatsoever, and without 
any business experience, I was forced to withdraw as often 
as I applied. A cold and heartless world it . appeared to 
me. Day after day I searched up and down through the 
great city, to find night overtaking me, with nothing ac- 
complished, without hope, and daily becoming more and 
more discouraged, until I found the little means given me 
by a kind mother, with her blessing, dwindling down. 
Poverty began to stare me in the face, and that matters 
would come to a crisis soon was very evident. Thus 
driven to the last extremity, I hired out as a boy to a 
broker, upon the magnanimous sum of one dollar and 
twenty-five cents a week. 

Of course this did not pay very well ; but in six weeks' 
time I had made several acquaintances, and I found 
another situation, which paid me four dollars a week. 

For some two years I roamed from one position to 
another, watching my opportunities to secure each year 
better pay and prospects, until at last I was rewarded by 
a position as assistant book-keeper in a wholesale house, 
in which I soon became one of the fixtures of the institu- 
tion. 

After three years of devoted and strict attention to 
business, I was permitted to draw eight hundred dollars a 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 7 

year for my services. By purchasing all my clothing at 
wholesale, I succeeded in making all my points meet. 

In this situation my hours were from eight to five, and 
my evenings were devoted to reading and improving my 
mind. 

This was a pleasant and cherished pastime, and my 
taste ran more to history, biography, and the sciences, 
than to novel-reading. 

During this time I felt sorely the bondage under which 
I was forced to live, for my necessary support. I longed 
to be a free man, to be my own master ; but in vain. 
Every avenue into which I might wish to enter, every 
opportunity whereby I might turn the course of money 
into my pocket, seemed blockaded with the simple fact 
that I possessed no capital. The more I butted against 
these stern facts, the more vexed I became, and the more 
determined I was that I should fight my way into some 
business, for my own account. But alas ! it was all in 
vain. I had no moneyed friends to help me, no rich rela- 
tion to die and leave an estate, however inconsiderable. 

I had become fully convinced that no chance would be 
left for me as partner in the firm, however useful I might 
become, as my employers had large families, and sons 
just ready to come upon the scene of action. Other fields 
must be found, and the sooner a foundation was laid the 
better. By chance, I read one day an article on small- 
fruit culture, which interested me, though some of the 



8 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR. 

statements appeared rather exaggerated. Out of mere curi- 
osity I visited the markets, and was surprised at the 
immense amounts and profits of the business. I said at 
once, this is the work for me ; why cannot I raise fruit, 
and berries, and vegetables to sell as well as anyone? 
Upon a more diligent investigation I became more 
throughly convinced, and was not long in deciding that 
some such occupation would be my best forte. I then re- 
solved to spend my winter, reading upon agriculture and 
small fruits, to save every penny to the uttermost, and in 
the spring go into the suburbs, hire a small piece of 
ground, and spend my leisure hours in cultivating it as an 
experiment. 

The more I studied the more I became interested, and 
confident of success. In the mean time I was searching 
diligently for information from practical truckers and fruit- 
growers, and visited many of those noted growers whose 
names are familiar to the agricultural press. I found 
them very clever, and willing to impart information, 
which was in striking contrast with the all-grasping and 
avaricious men of the city. 



CHAPTER II. 

SPRING WORK AND PLANS — SEARCH FOR LAND — SELECTION OF 
CROPS — EXPENSE OF STARTING BUSINESS — TRANSPLANTING — 
FREAK OF JACK FROST MY WORK, AND HOW IT WAS MANAGED. 

Having prepared to enter upon a campaign more active 
than any of its predecessors, and a winter's reading and 
study having prepared me as far as a theoretical knowl- 
edge could avail me, I was almost a new man in all agri- 
cultural matters. Such had been the increase in my 
general information, and the great inspiration to activity 
that it had given me, that I felt confident I could proceed 
without trouble, little realizing what in fact was before 
me. 

Many told me it was but a vein of enthusiasm, which 
would soon die out. A portion of it I admit was ; but it 
served its purpose in arousing my ambition, and in spur- 
ring me on to the practical performance of much to my 
welfare, although I found my stock of knowledge was 
small compared with what I had yet to learn. Early 
spring came upon me before I realized the winter half 
gone, so deeply had I been interested in my studies. 

By putting in practice the plans I had made the pre- 



10 



vious fall, I had accumulated An the savings-bank the 
small sum of seventy dollars, — by laying aside ten dollars 
every month, no matter what were my necessities for 
usino; it otherwise. This was all I had in hand with 
which to commence operations. 

How to invest this amount to the best advantage was 
now the great problem I had to solve. In whatever I under- 
took I had determined it should be done without the 
necessity of neglecting my other duties appertaining to 
my business in New York, for the first year at least ; for 
I could illy afford to throw up a sure and steady income 
for any imbrobability of success. To accomplish this it 
would be necessary for me to establish my basis of opera- 
tions somewhere within easy access of New York. To 
think of buying with my small capital was entirely out of 
the question, and my only alternative was to rent a small 
piece of ground adapted to my requirements. 

I had acquired many useful hints from truckers, and 
also noticed that the largest number of them came princi- 
pally from different portions of Long Island, and not very 
far distant either. 

I searched and advertised without any success. I tried 
another expedient, of taking short rambles into the coun- 
try suburbs near the city, and thereby was better informed 
of the general surroundings of the city than ever before, 
witnessing many things and learning many facts which 
greatly surprised me. It is possible for people to live in 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 11 

the city a lifetime, and know nothing of their surround- 
ings. So much rock, and the great distance to the upper 
part of New York, or Manhattan Island, attended with the 
great inconvenience in travelling to and fro, was a great 
barrier to locating in that vicinity; while to New Jersey 
soil I was quite averse, although the means of transit 
were much more frequent and desirable than at any other 

place. 

There was no other point apparently more convenient, 
or better adapted to my wants, which remained, than the 
Brooklyn or Long Island Shore. But even here I found 
trials and tribulations, though of a different nature. This 
city being spread over more ground, though not as thickly 
built up, had the same deficiency in means of ^transit, and 
the distance across the city to its suburbs was nearly as 
great. The soil in the suburbs was light and loamy, and 
quite free from stqnes, and to my untutored mind had 
every appearance of what I most needed. 

The scarcity of houses left many lots in open ground, 
which were held principally by capitalists as a specula- 
tion, waiting for time and increase of inhabitants to raise 
the value of their lands. I picked out a nice plot of sev- 
eral lots adjoining, which I judged to be about half an 
acre, and made diligent search for the owner thereof, whom 
I found to be not easily persuaded, not knowing when be 
should sell ; but finally he agreed to a lease for one year 
for one hundred dollars. He assured me I would not sue- 



12 



ceed; if from no other cause, its proximity would lead some 
evil-minded persons to commit serious depredations. 

My lease was dated from the first of April, and the first 
two weeks were spent in sundry preparations, among which 
was the securing of a boarding-place near at hand and con- 
venient to the scene of my proposed labors. My own 
common sense told me that my ground must be first ma- 
nured, then ploughed and harrowed ; but what was most 
essential for my soil I could not divine, and upon applying 
to my books for information I could come to no more defi- 
nite conclusion. To purchase manure in such quantity 
as I should need, and the cost of delivery, would draw 
upon my treasury an unwarrantable amount. It occurred 
to me at this time that the sweepings from the streets of 
the city must contain a large amount of fertilizing power 
and mineral properties, while the expense would be very 
small. Upon application to the street commissioner, he 
readily consented to supply me with all I should want, 
delivered upon my plot for twenty-five cents a load. 

Early rising was a habit I was forced to acquire ; for by 
so doing much valuable time could be economized, and I 
proposed to devote every available moment to my new 
work. The first morning after I was ensconced in my 
new home I started out early, with a shovel in my hand, 
and employed myself vigorously in spreading my street 
sweepings thinly over the ground. 

This work came rather hard at first, and left indelible 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 13 

impressions upon my hands, consequent upon my long 
exemption from physical labor. But on the whole I felt 
better for it, and a few mornings sufficed to see this work 
all completed. A neighbor had agreed with me to do the 
ploughing and harrowing — which I found performed in a 
neat and creditable manner, one night upon my return 
home — for the moderate sum of three dollars. My ground 
was now awaiting my disposition, and my plans and books 
were at once consulted, for my next move in detail. I 
had thought it best to devote my principal attention in 
my new experiment to the cultivation of cabbages and 
tomatoes, combining with them such other plants as 
would assimilate without harm, and with a show of suc- 
cess. The tomato (so says the book) is one of the most im- 
portant of all garden products, and the facility with which 
it is managed places it readily under the control of the 
least experienced. But to produce early crops the seed 
must be put down in hot-beds, or forcing-pits, some ten or 
twelve weeks before the plants are fit to be placed in the 
ground. How encouraging ! It was now the middle of 
April. In twelve weeks' time I could have plants fit for 
transplanting ; that would be the middle of July, before 
which time I should have tomatoes for sale by rights. A 
second consideration was the expense of the hot-bed, and 
the probability of its success at so late a day. One of 
my principal objects was to secure early produce for the 
market, and this would not do at all. 



14 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

To recover this lost time I must secure from some 
gardener a quantity of plants sufficiently advanced to be 
ready for the open ground, which was accomplished by the 
expenditure of no little time and trouble. 

An abundance of rank stock, with short, stubby roots, 
and otherwise of medium class, were found, but my selec- 
tions were of those well advanced, with long and a plenty 
of fibrous roots. Perseverance insured my success, and I 
secured my tomato plants at an average cost of one dollar 
and twenty-five cents per hundred, and cabbage plants 
for seventy-five cents per hundred. I secured my cab- 
bage plants at the same time, thus saving a second search 
for them. I found it necessary to exercise much precau- 
tion in planting ; and that it was far preferable, in fact an 
essential object, to have a dark or rainy day in which to 
set them out, which would prevent them from being 
wilted by the hot sun before their roots had taken hold 
of or begun to work in their new soil. As this would be 
a loss of time which I could not admit of, and the nights 
being warm for the season, I labored by the light of the 
moon, covering each plant with a bit of paper to protect 
it during the coming day, and every morning for a few 
days sprinkling them with water. 

I set them out in rows three feet apart each way, and 
placed a small handful of stable manure around each , 
hill, two loads of which I had previously provided, at 
an expense of two dollars per load, delivered upon my 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 15 

ground. The cabbages were likewise set out three feet 
apart each way, and treated in fcvery respect the same s 
tomatoes. 

They had come to me well prepared, set in small boxes 
of earth, containing from three to four dozen each, that 
they might keep well for some time. 

In a week's time I had accomplished the whole work 
with my own hands. 

Two April showers were timely given, which helped to 
sustain the life of the plants after transplanting, and I 
saw -no indications of losing any until about a week after 
they were all out, when a sudden change in the weather 
one night brought on a severe frost. 

Upon going out in the morning, and finding Jack Frost 
revelling in his sports upon my tomatoes, I felt quite un- 
pleasant towards him, for I was certain my work would 
have to be done all over again ; but happily he succeeded 
in laying waste only about one hundred of them, which I 
speedily replaced. My two hours' work every morning 
brought me great enjoyment after the first few days' 
fatigue had worn off. 

The interest in my work had brought on the habit of 
early rising more easily than I had anticipated, and upon 
the whole my new pursuits appeared to better capacitate 
me for the more proper performance of my daily duties in 
my business, while the result for the better in my health 
was quite apparent from the first. My whole soul was 



16 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR, 

now thoroughly aroused, and appeared to pour itself into 
this one channel with such unwonted power that my busi- 
ness in the city began to lack the interest which I had 
formerly found in it. I might say with safety that it was 
somewhat neglected. Working for hire in behalf of 
others had lost its charm, and an ambition for selfish in- 
terests had quite superseded it. 



CHAPTER III. 

ECONOMIZING ROOM — AUXILIARY CROPS — A HALF ACRE OF TRUCK 
— WEEDS VERSUS CROPS — BATTLE WON — STUDY OF NATURE — 
PREPARATIONS FOR MARKETING — PRACTICE OF TRUCKERS — 
PROFITS OF MIDDLE MEN — TO SAVE IS TO EARN. 

My half acre was at this time covered equally with 
tomatoes and cabbages, yet much room was left which 
might be economized by growing some crop or crops which 
could be gathered at an earlier day, and which would not 
materially interfere with what I had already out. 

My books now came into requisition, and I studied the 
nature and characteristics of various articles, which had any 
probability of meeting my wants. After much contempla- 
tion I decided upon planting lettuce and radishes. 

There is, perhaps, no plant of the garden we could so 
ill afford to dispense with as lettuce. Few gardens of all 
classes are without it, and its freedom from insects and 
disease makes it one of the most easily-to-be-managed veg- 
etables in the hands of any one. The plants intended to 
mature for an early market will require treatment similar 
to tomatoes and cabbages, and to effect that object they are 
set out in hot-houses as early as February, that they may 
2 17 



18 



be in a condition to transplant to the open ground so soon 
as the frost has left it in the spring. 

Lettuce generally matures its crop in about half the 
time it takes for tomatoes, and about one quarter as long as 
is required by cabbages, and therefore is all cut off before 
it can in any way interfere with them. 

I had no other course than the one pursued previously 
in getting my other plants, that of purchasing lettuce 
plants from professional gardeners, which was an additional 
expense. By the last week in April they were all set out 
between my rows of tomatoes each way, aod all looked 
very promising. 

My plot of ground consisted of ten city lots, twenty-five 
feet wide and one hundred feet deep. 

They were so situated that five fronted on one street, 
and the remaining five upon the next street below. The 
whole plot was one hundred and twenty-five feet wide and 
two hundred feet long. 

One half of this was set out with tomatoes, which gave me 
thirty-three rows, averaging forty-one tomato plants each, 
or a total of one thousand three hundred and fifty-three . 

In each of these rows I had placed a row of lettuce, 
eighteen inches apart, and eighteen inches from each 
tomato plant. This gave me thirty-two rows of lettuce 
of eighty-two in a row. In each row of tomatoes between 
each hill, I also placed a lettuce plant, which gave me thirty- 
three rows of forty each, or a total of three thousand nine 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 19 

hundred and forty-four lettuce plants, which, if they all 
lived and matured well, would make quite a handsome little 
crop. I have endeavored to show how systematically 
and economically I had disposed of this first half of my 
garden plot, and as a first attempt I thought it well con- 
ceived and executed, and therefore proceeded to make a 
similar disposition of my second half. This was not so 
readily accomplished. Radishes, like lettuce, prefer a very 
light soil as well as rich, to produce a fair crop ; while my 
books said they were usually sown broadcast and har- 
rowed in. 

How to do this, with my cabbages already set out, was 
beyond my ability to conceive ; but after much reflection I 
originated an idea in my head, as I thought, but which 
afterwards proved but a common practice among gardeners 
of long standing. 

My idea was to make a little furrow with my hoe-han- 
dle between the rows of my cabbages, and then cover them 
by lightly shoving the back of the hoe over the row. 
This was a much longer and more tedious job than I had 
anticipated, and perhaps the most unprofitable of any part 
of my experiment. Having a rather treacherous mem- 
ory, I was induced to provide myself a small pass-book, 
which I could carry in my pocket, and had been careful to 
note down my proceedings each day, and marked therein 
the different phases of my plants and work, as it was ob- 
served from day to day. A few pages were also set apart 



20 



for suggestions which would occur to me, and needing fur- 
ther study or a practical demonstration. I had therefore 
not only a correct data of all transpiring around me, but 
ample scope for meditation. 

A book of this kind adds much to any one's knowledge, 
and helps to form a systematic way of doing all things. 
System is the great corner-stone of a man's existence. 

By this means I was sanctioned and aided in pursuing 
my experiment in detail in many practical directions. The 
reader may have cause to laugh at these things ; but he 
must remember I was actually ignorant, and trying hard to 
learn, and in my attempt ofttimes I arrived at well-known 
and practical truths by the most circuitous routes. By 
so doing I think a deeper impression was made upon my 
memory than had I been told it by one who knew. I had 
noticed that a few hills of tomatoes, around which I had 
loosened the soil very frequently, and more often than the 
rest, were growing up more rapidly. 

Being unable to find any other reason, I concluded that 
frequent stirring of the soil was more conducive to the 
rapid growth and more complete development of the 
plant. Weeds will grow where nothing else will, and just 
where you do not wish them. They were very provok- 
ing, and it soon became a matter of necessity rather than 
of theory, that I should raise the hoe with skill, and 
attack these little enemies all over my plantation, lest the 
devastation of this little army should lay waste my fields 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 21 

and empty my granaries. The weather was quite propitious, 
and every clay bespoke the near approach of summer in 
earnest. Weeds grew in spite of all I could do, and for 
some time seemed to threaten the total annihilation of all 
my plants. 

It was the hardest battle I had ever fought, but victory 
was my final reward. 

After I had subdued these obnoxious intruders, I could 
almost see my plants grow, and I continued to hoe them 
over and over again, keeping the soil almost constantly 
stirred. April showers appeared to be more abundant 
this season than I had ever noticed them, and kept with 
us until late in May, and their beneficent influence was 
felt alike by weeds and plants. With every fresh shower 
it would appear as if a new crop of weeds had been sown, 
which needed just those few hours of warm sunshine to 
bring them out. The old saying that toads were brouglit 
down by showers appeared to be changed, and weeds sub- 
stituted in their place. A constant dropping will wear 
away a stone, and encouraged by this maxim, a constant 
dropping of the hoe upon them kept them under pretty 
good subjection. 

My out-door exercise had produced a wonderful change 
in me, and among other things the most notable was the 
increase of my appetite. A remark to this effect by the 
landlady, at this time, touched me rather sensitively, and 
I began to fear lest she might advance the price of my 



22 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

board, and here would be a dilemma ; for a financial pres- 
sure of this character, under my present circumstances, 
would have been a blow under which I would be unable 
to exist. I had assured her I was a delicate eater, and 
had done so conscientiously; but when a review of the 
immense amount of the substantial which I passed out of 
sight was taken into consideration, I was not surprised 
that she should doubt my veracity. I endeavored to 
assure her all would be right, and set forth very tempt- 
ingly how I would before long be able to supply her table 
with some choice vegetables. 

I was confident that it was nothing else than my 
out-door exercise which was the innocent cause of my 
great appetite. Dyspepsia no longer interfered with 
digestion. 

I was no longer the thin and slender man I had for- 
merly beheld in the mirror, with a pale, ghostly complex- 
ion ; but full and brown, heavier and happier than ever 
before. 

I am digressing, however, at an improper point, from 
my story. My course had been entered upon and I must 
run the race, win or lose. As the season advanced, I 
watched with much pleasure the unfolding of each leaf 
and the maturing process of each plant, closely iden- 
tifying the works of God, which were truly wonderful ! 
It was with a rare delight I was seized, the day I discov- 
ered my first little green tomato, hanging so gracefully 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 23 

from its shaded bower, and I moved with a quick step 
and a light heart, full of encouragement. 

It was a timely warning to me that the sowing and 
seed time was fairly in the past, and that the harvest 
would soon be here. A glance into the future harvest 
time, for it appeared as though my life was then confined 
within the seed time and harvest, pointed out plainly that 
there was work of a different nature at hand in the prepa- 
ration for gathering my crops. I must be prepared for the 
marketing of my products, and have all things provided 
and ready, that there might be no delay when harvest 
time arrived. 

This was my first experiment, — not just to see what I 
could raise, but to assure myself what income could be 
derived from it, and it was to receive' a fair trial at my 
hands, either for profit or loss ; and accordingly I looked 
with care into the various means practised of transporting 
produce to market, and how it was marketed. 

It was customary for parties living at a distance, after 
gathering their produce, to pack it neatly and with care 
in some appropriate box, basket, or other article, as- its 
requirements might demand, and ship it by railroad or boat 
to the city market, consigned to some good commission 
agent, who would sell and deduct a percentage — generally 
five per cent. — for his pay. I was so situated as to have 
no railroad or boat facilities, and, besides, I could ill afford 
to pay a commission merchant for selling it. 



24 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 



The latter argument was given up, however, for I 
found it was a difficult matter to get one of these dealers 
to trouble themselves with such small consignments as it 
was represented that I should make. Another method 
adopted among near-by truckers was to load up their 
wagons, and start for the market early in the evening, rid- 
ing all night just so as to arrive in market at the break 
of day ; or if they lived very near, they would start in the 
early hours of the morning, gauging themselves according 
to the distance they were obliged to travel. This method 
I could in no wise adopt, for it would first necessitate the 
purchase of a horse and wagon, which was beyond my 
means ; and then being deprived of the necessary amount 
of sleep, required for my duties during the day, would be 
incompatible with my interests. 

Having abandoned both of these plans as totally im- 
practicable in my case, I determined to spend a few even- 
ings among the grocers of my acquaintance, to whom I 
stated clearly my case, and I found they readily assented 
to an arrangement which I thought would be highly sat- 
isfactory to all parties concerned. These city grocers 
are supposed to supply their customers with all kinds of 
vegetables, and in fact their trade depends upon the fresh- 
ness and superiority of what they have ; for in so large a 
city there is a large competition, and grocers are abundant, 
and people do not hesitate to go from one to another, they 
always having the cash in their hands. Of course, it is an 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 25 

object for every grocer to have the very best, to secure 
such customers. 

Therefore I found the grocers not only willing to give 
me a better price, but they willingly agreed to send 
their own wagons the short distance required, to get a 
fresh article. 

I say a better price, but it was really the price nearest 
that paid by the consumer, and being the profits of all the 
middle men put into my own pocket. If sent to the 
commission merchant, they are sold by him to the regular 
dealer, he in turn disposing of them to another dealer, or 
to the grocery-man. 

Again, produce generally offered for sale of a morning 
by the grocery-man has already been at least twenty-four 
hours plucked from its bed, this time being required in 
its transportation and passage through the dealer's 
hands. 

In this arrangement I made, I was at no expense for 
baskets, in which to pack my produce; for having an 
abundant supply for other purposes they brought them out 
for me to fill. Having satisfactorily arranged all these 
preliminaries, I was now prepared to receive anything 
Dame Nature might choose to grant, and anxiously and 
closely watched the consummation of my experiment. 

A tolerably good fence was upon the lots when I took 
possession, and I had devoted some odd moments from time 
to time in putting it in good repair, thus preventing the 



26 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR. 

depredations of any unruly cow which might be disposed 
to gratify her appetite by the tempting display in my 
garden. 

Fortunately my neighbors did not possess any little 
pigs or chickens, and no thieves were tempted to trespass 
upon my domain, although the latter was my greatest 
fear. 

Within the limits of a great city there necessarily accu- 
mulate many people, of many minds, and that community 
which is free from evil-disposed persons, who seek to obtain 
dishonestly those things they have not the ambition to ac- 
quire honestly, would be one well worth visiting, for it 
is very rare. This was the burden of my fears, locating 
in the suburbs of so great a city. But if there were any 
such, they failed to give me a call, which I in nowise re- 
gretted. Long and protracted rain-storms were frequent, 
as well as drawbacks, this season ; but for all of that, time 
sped on until the first harvest, and I could do no more 
than abide the result. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FERTILIZERS — FIRST SALE — AN EARLY MARKET — RETURNS FOR 
PRODUCE — A DOLLAR SAVED IS TWO DOLLARS EARNED — 
AUXILIARY CROPS — TOMATOES. 

At this point I could not do otherwise than speak well 
of street-sweepings, although I did think the great amount 
of weeds I had to conquer was somehow attributable to 
the fertilizers I had used. I had no reason to complain 
however, for the result thus far had been all I could expect 
from any of the accustomed fertilizers. It may have been 
just the particular article needed to recuscitate the soil I 
had to cultivate, while in another instance it might be en- 
tirely useless. 

This result is equally as liable to occur with any of the 
ordinary fertilizers employed as well as this. I have often 
seen two fields side by side, with only a fence to separate 
them, and while the soil would be every way analogous, 
and treated precisely alike, the one would produce remark- 
ably good crops, while its neighbor would produce crops 
exactly the opposite. 

Much depends upon the requirements of the soil, which 
can be determined only by a series of crops raised from it 

- 27 



28 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

upon successive trials. My land, not having been cultivated 
for several years, appeared to accept this donation very 
gratefully, and threw a great amount of power into the 
growing properties of the plants. 

The middle of May was now at hand, and my lettuce 
was showing some very large heads. We had already had 
two or three messes for our table, and it was very fine and 
tender. 

I was now watching the market very closely, and had 
seen but a very few heads exposed for sale. Towards the 
last of the month it became more abundant, and the ruling 
price was five cents per head, although grocery-men were 
selling it for twelve and fifteen cents. 

One morning I started out with a bundle of sticks, and 
marked all the largest heads I could find, until I had made 
out five hundred. 

On my way to the city I informed two of the grocery- 
men I could deliver them, at an early hour, two hundred 
and fifty heads each, at ten cents, upon the following morn- 
ing. Their wagons were on hand at a bright and early 
hour, and it was the work of a few moments to gather the 
heads I had marked out the previous morning. Such 
heads of lettuce I had never seen, for some of them would 
entirely conceal a good sizeed dining-plate. They were 
beauties for me to behold. 

I continued to supply my landlady with all she desired 
for her table, and it would be unnecessary to repeat her ex- 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 29 

pressions of gratitude, nor what pleasure I had in partak- 
ing of it, especially as it was grown by my own hands. 

On my way to the city I stopped at the grocers, and 
found them highly pleased, and received from them the first 
returns for my labor, just fifty dollars ; and could I really 
believe my eyes ? I was not quite sure it was more than 
a dream, and a second and a third investigation, as I pur- 
sued my course to my business, only tended to assure me 
that I had just fifty dollars, and that it was really in my 
pocket, and the result of my own labor. 

I had brought every exertion, and all the available 
knowledge I possessed, into practice, that I might hasten 
my crops into an early market ; and it was only a fact made 
more evident, that could I have had more I should have 
gained a greater profit ; but I had them not, and nearly a 
week rolled by before I had lettuce again for market, and 
then the price had fallen. The market was becoming 
rapidly stocked, and the best heads only brought three 
cents. It was evident to me that the balance would be 
ready for market at about the same time, and I adopted 
the course of selecting and marking out those most matured 
one morning, and delivering them upon the following 
morning, thus marketing every other day until all I had 
was disposed of. 

Previously I had sold five hundred heads at seven cents, 
netting me just thirty -five dollars. Subsequent sales ran 
as follows : five hundred heads at five cents, four hundred 



80 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

at four cents, one hundred at two cents, four hundred at 
one and one half cents, and a balance of nine hundred 
heads at one dollar per hundred, — making my total re- 
ceipts from lettuce one hundred and fifty-three dollars. 
I had some left, which were unmarketable, besides what 
I had used myself, given away, and otherwise disposed of. 

I had picked out thirty heads also, intending them to 
run to seed. I was more advantageously situated than 
many, and readily accessible to the market from my busi- 
ness, and could easily watch the fluctuations of the market. 

My receipts were trivial in amount when compared with 
larger producers ; but I could afford to take considerable 
more trouble, which on a larger scale I would avoid. A 
dollar saved was two earned, and if I could save just that 
dollar by a little extra trouble it was my interest to do so un- 
der those circumstances. I was also taught, by those first 
experiences, that it was the early bird which caught the 
worm. Competition is not altogether a drawback, but more 
the support of trade ; for without it we cannot project or 
carry out the great and solid issues of- the day, and yet we 
are vainly striving to clear ourselves of it, without success. 

There is no business into which we may enter but what 
has its competition, and it is equally true with the culti- 
vator of the soil ; he strives to overreach his neighbors, 
and if he succeeds in reaching an early market, he has not 
long to reap its benefits, for his neighbors and competitors 
in the race are close upon his heels, and as the market be- 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 31. 

comes more abundantly supplied, the price must fall to ac- 
commodate it. If fortune favors one with suitable weather, 
combined with early planting and good care, he may reap 
a rich harvest in an early market ; but tide and winds are 
not always fair, and he is often prevented by these unfore- 
seen circumstances, which are beyond his control, from 
reaching a market until it has become abundantly supplied ; 
hence he gets small prices, and as the result becomes dis- 
heartened and discouraged, and thereupon affirms that 
farming don't pay. 

Such people are of just that class who readily place the 
blame of their ill-success upon anything else but their 
own management, and are sure to Cry down all things, 
persons, or books, which are striving to educate the people 
in their business, by holding forth their success as a guide 
and example. 

I met an old farmer a few days since, whom I knew had 
always been opposed to book-farming, as he called it ; and 
so strong was his antipathy that he positively refused to 
look at any book on farming, and never would subscribe to 
an agricultural paper. 

In the course of conversation he took occasion to reiter- 
ate his opinions to me, when I asked him if during his life 
he had made farming pay. Most certainly he had. "Well," 
said I, " would you advise a person to commence as you 
did, and work up ; or would you rather tell him, and save 
him some of the misfortune you have experienced? " 



32 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

Now the old man was very kind-hearted and social, and 
would never withhold any information asked of him. " Oh," 
said he, "I should not want any one to pass through all I 
have. I could tell any young man so he could get along first- 
rate, and save himself a deal of trouble which I got into 
just because I knew no better, and had no one to advise me." 

"Well, then," I said, "if you were to write down on 
paper a history of all you have done, and troubles you have 
encountered and overcome, and it was printed and put into 
a book, would you consider it as good a guide as if spoken 
by your own lips ? " 

" Most assuredly I would," he replied. 

" Well, then," I responded, " I have a number of books, 
written by men situated just like yourself, who have 
passed through similar breakers, and come out safe and 
successful ; and yet you laugh at me because I read them, 
and make their experiences my study, and call it book- 
farming. Surely you are very inconsistent, and would feel 
deeply injured were I to treat a book you might write, as 
you do others' books." 

The old man was somewhat puzzled at first, and went 
away promising to think better of books in future. A 
short time afterwards I got his subscription for an agricul- 
tural paper, and he is very fond of looking over the 
books in my library quite frequently. 

How well I succeeded, and the effects of strong competi- 
tion upon my sales, is clearly shown in the quotations of 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 

prices given above, all of which occurred in \\\o brief space 
of two weeks. As fast as the lettuce was removed I went 
over the ground with a hoe, spending two hours each 
morning, at night an hour, — which might seem to many 
very small, but in the aggregate amounted to considerable, 
besides keeping my mind fully occupied, and my ground 
thoroughly tilled. My radishes appeared to be rather 
a drawback, and I was not very much predisposed in their 
favor. 

When they became marketable I accepted an offer of 
one dollar and a half for them by the hundred, and let 
them go. They turned out rather small, but good as far 
as they went. The turnip-root radish was the kind sown, 
principally, because I had heard them highly extolled, and 
as the most desirable for an early market ; but from my ex- 
perience I could not indorse them. The price received did 
not satisfactorily remunerate me, — the whole crop, when 
gathered, amounting to only thirty-two hundred, and 
bringing me but forty-eight dollars. Of my auxiliary 
crops it will be seen the radishes brought me but one- 
third the amount my lettuce returned. 

From the first to the middle of June, my tomatoes en- 
gaged the best part of my time, and the amount of 
attention they demanded began to require more time than 
I had to devote to them. This strong indication of the 
necessity of more labor urged upon me the acquisition of 
some outside help. 
3 



34 



I supplied myself with a quantity of stakes about five 
feet in length, pointed at one end, and drove one by each 
vine, to which I tied up the vines loosely, which served to 
keep them clear from the ground, and give the sun and air 
more easy access. All that I succeeded in treating in this 
manner I was not disappointed in seeing mature more 
rapidly than those which for lack of time I had left to fol- 
low their own inclinations upon the ground. Thus ar- 
ranged, I could easily walk through and work among them. 
My cost for stakes and twine was twelve dollars and fifty 
cents. 

About the middle of June I saw indications of a few 
tomatoes turning, and in two weeks more I looked for my 
first marketing. In looking about, I found I could dispose 
of them to the grocery-men, as I had the lettuce, only in 
this case I must furnish my own baskets. For this pur- 
pose I purchased what is commonly known as the peck or 
tomato basket, at twenty cents each. I considered two 
hundred quite a supply, and all I should need for the 
season. 

The weather continued warm and fair, and the weeds 
grew vigorously, and the cabbages were suffering for another 
hoeing ; tomatoes would soon be ready to gather, and work 
lay on every hand. I saw no remedy for the deplorable 
condition into which I was fast merging, except by hiring 
a laborer. I secured a faithful old colored man, who came 
well recommended as a gardener, for two dollars per day. 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 35 

The use of a horse and wagon was also arranged for, if 
needed, and by these additional helps all was restored to 
what I believed a necessary and proper condition. 



CHAPTER V. 

MARKETING TOMATOES — CONDITION AND SUPPLY OF THE MARKET — 
MARKETING CABBAGES — SALE OF TURNIPS — SUMMARY OF THE 
YEAR'S EXPERIENCE. 

Shipments. of tomatoes from Bermuda were received in 
the New York market this year as early as the fifteenth 
of May, bringing two dollars and fifty cents per crate of 
five quarts, or, in other words, fifty cents per quart. By 
the first of June the price had fallen to one dollar and fifty 
cents per crate, and June nineteenth they were selling for 
seventy-five cents per crate. This fall in price was pro- 
duced by the arrival of the first from Norfolk. The dis- 
tance which the first had to be transported necessarily 
detracted from their value when compared with the more 
fresh article received from Norfolk. 

Norfolk tomatoes, therefore, brought a higher price, 
being more desirable, and sold for one dollar and fifty to 
one dollar and twenty-five cents per crate. These early 
shipments brought good prices, and the shippers partici- 
pated in large profits ; but a home article had a good mar- 
ket awaiting it, and the first lots from New Jersey brought 
twelve dollars and eighty cents per bushel, or forty cents 

36 



FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR. 87 

per quart. The Southern facilities for raising produce for 
an early market are superior to ours, and for a short time 
they reap a liberal profit ; but the distance they have to 
travel, and the rough handling they receive, necessarily 
decrease their value when put in competition with our 
home fruit ; yet these shipments have their effect in bring- 
ing our home produce into market at a lower rate than it 
otherwise would without this competition. 

I had been anxiously hoping for -my tomatoes to ripen ; 
but the stormy weather had put off the harvest until the 
twenty-fifth of June. The first lot of tomatoes I gathered 
amounted to twenty peck-baskets^ which I had carefully 
assorted, feeling that my reputation, as well as a good price 
to be obtained, would depend upon the superiority of the 
article I should market. I had determined upon sending 
my tomatoes to the general market, as I could not afford 
the time that would be required to sell and collect the bills, 
as I had with my previous crops of lettuce. 

The first twenty baskets I had sent to market brought 
me one dollar sixty-one and a half cents per basket, — a 
total of thirty two dollars and twenty-five cents after de- 
ducting the agent's commission of five dollars and seventy 
cents and paying freight. 

It was some days after this before I could gather another 
shipment, and in the mean time I received a note from my 
agent, — to whom I had previously stated I was a new be- 



38 



ginner, and asked as a special favor, that he would do the 
very best for me, — congratulating me upon the fine ap- 
pearance of my little consignment, and intimating that, at 
an early day, he should like to receive a similar consign- 
ment of one hundred baskets equally as good. I flattered 
myself that this was owing to the good care I had taken in 
assorting them. I permitted Henry, my hired help, to 
gather them, and in the evening I looked them all over, 
throwing out all imperfect or injured, and shipped one 
hundred baskets more, which brought me one dollar fourteen 
cents net. I noticed prices were on the decline, which, as the 
season advanced, I was sure would run very low. Every 
morning I took a good survey of my grounds, performing 
little jobs here and there, and laid out the work for Henry. 
Cabbages were maturing very rapidly, and were requiring 
attention, and withal I kept my laborer well occupied. I 
made but one more shipment to market, which was fifty 
baskets the first week in July, for which I received one 
dollar net. From this date the price fell very rapidly, 
until it was only nominal, and not worth the labor of 
picking. The second week in July, the grocers to whom 
I had sold lettuce called upon me, signifying their desire 
to be supplied with a good article of tomatoes. 

I agreed to deliver them twenty baskets every other day 
as long as they should last upon my ground. The price 
at the general market held at thirty-five to forty cents for 
about two weeks, and during that time I received from the 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 39 

grocers fifty cents per basket for one hundred and sixty bas- 
kets. About this time, I received from a party engaged in 
canning fruit an offer of twenty -five cents a bushel for the 
balance of my crop. 

Owing to the pressure of my other business, and the at- 
tention required by my cabbages, besides the low figures 
the market had reached, I concluded it would be the better 
policy to accept his offer, especially as he was to pick them 
himself. When he gave me up the vines, he had picked 
sixty bushels, and paid me fifteen dollars as per agreement. 
I found my cabbages were very much annoyed with bugs, 
and the care and watching necessary to keep them off by 
hand were very tedious ; as a remedy I suggested to Henry 
the idea of sprinkling some ashes over them each morning, 
for a few days, before the dew was off. To this he de- 
murred very strongly, prophesying the utter destruction of 
my whole crop if so treated. I was confident I had" seen 
my father do the same in his kitchen-garden in my early 
years ; but for what purpose I was too young to remember, 
but thought it must have been for some purpose of this 
kind. 

I tried it upon a few heads first, and found it quite 
satisfactory, after which I gave an application of un leached 
ashes to the whole field, which quite thoroughly eradicated 
the bugs. It was nearly into the middle of July before 
I sent my first lot of cabbages to market, and realized, 
from two hundred and twenty heads, five cents each. As 



40 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR ; 

soon as my tomato vines were done bearing, I had them 
pulled up, and put one side in one pile and threw some dirt 
over them, hoping to have a little manure out of them. 

I then made a brush-harrow, and scratched the ground 
over two or three times, and sowed turnip seed. In about 
four weeks from my first sale of cabbages I had disposed 
of the whole crop, receiving for four hundred head four 
cents, two and one half cents for three hundred heads, and 
two and one half cents for two lots of two hundred each. The 
remainder did not mature, while some I had used myself 
or given away. This crop was all off by the first of 
August, and I sowed this ground also to turnips. 

My garden was now turned into one turnip-field, and, as 
I had little or no work to do, I had a few leisure hours for 
recreation and meditation. The first of September was 
soon at hand, and with its arrival I should make out my 
first year since I had broken loose from my old routine, 
and given my ideas a larger and more practical scope. 

September is, in fact, the beginning of the year to all 
cultivators of the soil, of all branches. Fall sowing, prepara- 
tions for winter, housing of plants, and laying out of plans 
for a summer's work are then perfected. 

Moreover, it is the best time to take observations and 
establish the prospects of the future upon a basis of the 
past experience. And, accordingly, was it not the most 
fitting time for me to consider the profit or loss of my first 
experiment as a gardener? So hastily conceived and so 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 41 

quickly executed, little time had been permitted me for 
sober reflection during the entire summer. 

It was here, there, thus and so, and this the one needed 
and that the other demanded, as quick as ever it could be 
accomplished. Time and labor . could only be given to 
meet all the wants, leaving no time unoccupied for medi- 
tation or observation. 

Now I could review these scenes and study their re- 
sults while they were fresh in my memory, and receive 
the lessons they taught. 

But a year before, I was as ignorant of this business as 
a young child who has never seen the country. There 
are, however, very few children who have not been in the 
country, and have a general idea of what it is; but many a 
country child knows not of the city, and I trust many of 
them may never witness or indulge in its evils. 

But in neither case are the stern realities of life 
more realized or. understood than the duties of a mechanic 
are by the merchant. I might extend the comparison to 
the majority of men; for how vast and deep are the ways 
and responsibilities of every member of humanity ! The 
city people all like to go to the country for pleasure, but 
few can ever arrive at the real merit of country life, save 
they have had a hand in the workings thereof. In my 
new avocation I was neither in the country nor the city, 
strictly speaking, but I had begun to taste some of its 
more stern realities. In experience and knowledge I had 



42 



been transformed, and the unparalleled enthusiasm and 
egotistic confidence with which I had started out was now 
toned down to a proper level, while my determination of 
purpose increased as the other supports fell off. I found 
that, when I had thought I knew much, I knew but lit- 
tle, and that there was something to be learned every 
day I lived ; and eventually I became an humble but eager 
inquirer after knowledge, which course I continue until 
this day. 

My first year's experience was nothing like what I had 
expected ; for my enthusiastic anticipations had led me to 
build large profits too quickly and upon too premature a 
foundation. But whatever were the disappointments or 
encouragements of that first year, or their causes, I can 
simply say, taking it all in all, it was a dear experience; 
and yet, dear as it was, if I were to-day without that ex- 
perience, no amount of money could atone to me for it, and 
I think it is a chance if I had been able to recount these 
scenes from the stand-point I now occupy. 

It is well said that no person can carry on two occupa- 
tions successfully at one time. To this fact I may attrib- 
ute a partial cause for some of my drawbacks, which, in 
another light, I might not call poor success. The manner 
in which I had thus employed my spare time had been 
very conducive to my health and happiness. My mind 
was fully occupied as well as my hands, and I began to 
think I should bless the day when my last turnip was sold 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 43 

and all my affairs settled up. But when that day came, rest 
was not acceptable ; for, without my labor and the com- 
plete occupation of my mind, I was lost, and longed again 
for active pursuit. Such is human nature, — never satis- 
fied ; never contented. No sooner are our wishes granted 
than we long for something else. Thus, when the sum- 
mer's campaign was finally closed, and the first few days 
had worn away, I was again up and at it, as will be seen 
in succeeding chapters. My health was very much im- 
proved, as my weight would testify. My face was some- 
what tanned, and I could not show any lily white and soft 
hands ; but what was all that, compared with my grand 
result ? 

Had I not accomplished my purpose? Had I not 
planned and executed my own work, and brought it to a 
successful issue? Is there no satisfaction in all these 
things ? Try it ! Make something by your own efforts, 
and see 'if you do not realize a degree of satisfaction beyond 
a precedent in your history. I was fond of my own work 
and achievements, as every man naturally is ; not given 
to boasting, neither, having accomplished one good work, 
so lost in the admiration of it as to forget to do another. 

To work and do something for yourself, to achieve a 
name or an honor by your own ingenuity, and honorably, 
are the noble and advancing strides of a civilized people ; 
and such a people are among those who boast of an Ameri- 
can birth. 



CHAPTER VI. 

FIGURES DO LIE — PLAN OF SEASON — MY TRIAL BALANCE. — MY 
PROFITS — SUMMARY OF BENEFITS NOT ESTIMATED BY DOLLARS 

AND CENTS. 

I have read a great many books, professing to give 
practical instruction, based upon facts and figures ; but I 
find that figures can be made to lie as well as tell the 
truth. When I was a boy, they were wont to tell me 
figures could not lie ; but now I am grown up, and see very 
quickly that figures are very often induced to lie, and are 
thus productive of very serious results. Many persons, 
innocent and unworthy of ill-treatment, have been robbed 
of their very last dollar, and made miserable for life; 
their ambition stunned, and their courage thwarted, and 
thus left to drag out an indescribable existence of poverty 
and woe, merely by the skilful manipulation of figures in 
the hands of avaricious and grasping persons whose con- 
science admits of no moral law. In most agricultural 
books we find more or less of their statements based upon 
figures, and some very poorly substantiated. I have yet 
to see that book in print which gives a clear and detailed 
account of every income and outgo. Until then I can 

44 



FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR, 45 

hardly credit the author's facts, unless I give them a 
thorough examination; for some weak spot is almost sure 
to be found, or something omitted which, if shown up in a 
correct trial-balance, would completely disarrange their 
previous statements. In- view of these facts, I would not 
undertake- to give any of my figures, if I did not think 
I could satisfy the reader with a correct statement of 
every disbursement, as well as every source of income. 
In attempting, therefore, to give the reader a summary 
of my first year's experiment, I have appended a general 
statement of my accounts as they are to be found upon 
my books, — a set of which I always kept with the same 
precision and care as when it was my only occupation 
in the employ of others. In so doing, I have not, from 
any delicacy, as many writers have, omitted my personal, 
or what may be termed my family, expenses. It may 
seem commonplace and inappropriate to this story ; yet it 
is to my mind requisite and necessary, in order to show 
a true and just statement. My first half year was solely 
one of preparation ; yet I date my year from the first of 
September, which is not only the true beginning of the 
cultivator's year, but was the time when I first started 
upon my plans, and without dollar of capital. My first 
half year I have entitled the preparatory season, and the 
latter the active season. By such a statement it may 
seem easy to conduct the business so long as the result 
comes out to a profit. At the commencement of the 



46 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

preparatory season I had nothing ; at its close I had 
saved seventy dollars with which to commence the active 
season. My rent alone would more than cover this 
amount, but I arranged to pay that in monthly instal- 
ments, and my crops so came in as to relieve me from 
any temporary embarrassment. I ask a careful con- 
sideration of the following statements of my first year's 
work : — 

FIRST YEAR. TRIAL-BALANCE. 

Preparatory Season. 

Salary, first six months, from business in New York, . . $400 00 

Paid for board and washing, .... $194 00 

" " transportation and incidentals, . . 24 50 

" " clothing (economized), . . . . 100 00 

" " agricultural books and papers, . . 11 50 

330 00 

Net savings six months, .....;. $70 00 

Active Season. 

Balance brought down, . . . . . . . $70 00 

Sales of lettuce, . . . 153 00 

" " radishes, 48 00 

" " tomatoes, . 291 25 

" " cabbages, 14 50 

" " turnips, 25 00 

Salary six months in New York, . . . - . . . 400 00 

Inventory, tools, baskets, etc., 39 50 

Total receipts, . . $1,068 25 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 



47 



Total Receipts, 

Paid for rent, 

" " fertilizers, 100 loads @ 25c. 

" " garden tools, 

" " ploughing, 

• " " tomato plants, 

" " cabbage " 

" " lettuce " 

" " radish and turnip seed, 

" " 200 baskets, . 

" " stakes and twine, 

" " cartage, etc., 

" " labor, 9 weeks @ $12, 

** " personal expenses, six months, 

" " agricultural books and papers, 

Balance to credit of bank first year, . 
Deduct savings from salary, 

Net profit of half an acre, . 



. $100 00 


. 25 00 


9 GO 


3 00 


. 1G 83 


. 10 13 


. 16 00 


. ' 3 00 


. 40 00 


. 12 50 


. 13 00 


. 108 00 


. 324 00 


6 00 


• 





$1 ; 0GS 25 



$687 11 

381 14 
140 00 

$24-1 14 



This to many would seem a very small amount in re- 
turn for all the trouble I had experienced. It was not 
quite as satisfactory to me as I had wished ; but, after 
reviewing it all, I thought it quite a respectable income, 
considering the source from which it emanated. Two 
hundred and forty-one dollars was a small amount of 
money ; but to me, in those times when I was never able 
to save or make money beyond enough for my necessary 
expenses, it was a considerable item. * 

The experiment undertaken had proved of more value 
than any savings-bank. 



48 



It is well for the clerk or the laboring man to lay aside 
a portion of his income every month against future wants, 
when he can faithfully adhere to it ; but in nine cases out 
of ten it is never carried out, and even then of what value 
is the small amount he can thus accumulate towards in- 
spiring him with ambition, and encouraging him in his 
business, or in giving him the buoyant pleasure of success 
upon his own responsibility ? It appears to me more like 
the unfaithful steward, who went and hid what his lord 
gave him, lest he should not be able to return it after 
many days. The faithful steward put his money where it 
gave him good returns, and when his lord came paid it 
back with usury. 

My savings of a year could not have possibly been more 
than one hundred and forty dollars, with a small interest 
of five per cent. What a savings-bank Mother Earth had 
been to me ! I had deposited in her treasury one hun- 
dred and forty dollars, and received in interest the sum of 
two hundred and forty-one dollars, with the original. 

Looking at it in another light, the percentage of my 
profits on the capital I had invested was very large in pro- 
portion to any other business. Very few classes of whole- 
sale business or manufactories ever expect to make more 
than ten or twelve per cent, on their capital, while retail 
stores average from twenty to forty per cent, profit on their 
sales. In some instances as high as fifty and one hundred 
per cent, are made. My profit in percentage was nearly 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 49 

two hundred per cent. This was a process resembling in 
its results compound interest. It was turning over my 
money two or three times in a single season ; and I ask 
you to show me a more complete or compact banking or 
commercial process within the control of one person than 
this. 

Again, it is universally acknowledged that he who sets 
out to till the soil errs greatly in expecting a profitable 
return from the first year's labors. So strong is this be- 
lief in general that it has become a fact undisputed. This 
fact I had in mind, and my expectations were somewhat 
guided by it, although it was my intention to disprove it if 
possible. I failed, however, to substantiate it, and proved 
that it would admit of some variations. It depends entirely 
upon what you undertake, and how you manage it. I can 
see no more chance for latitude here than in any mercantile 
pursuit, and if ordinary good judgment, accompanied with 
determined execution, is exercised, there is no more, nor 
as much, chance for a failure. As an experiment it had 
produced strong evidence, beyond a doubt, that with more 
extended fields a larger and more profitable result could 
be attained. The great fault with farmers generally is to 
possess and wield large farms, and, consequently, they do 
not receive as much attention in proportion as those of a 
less number of acres. Every person should therefore be 
governed by the rule of cause and effect ; and as the labor 
they have to devote to the complete tilling of one acre is 



50 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR. 

to its profitable results, so will their labor, proportionately 
increased to the number of acres they have, be to a similar 
proportionate profit. 

Again, the experience I had acquired, if it were possi- 
ble to estimate it in dollars and cents, would form a large 
item in my balance-sheets, and an equally large portion of 
stock on hand for a future season. Personally my health 
was so much improved that I could hardly believe myself 
to be the same person. There is nothing so beneficial to 
any one's health as free, open-air exercise and regular 
habits. To a robust and strong life dissipation and irregu- 
lar indulgences are sadly detrimental. 

Summing up all these results, what more encourage- 
ment could- 1 have? What greater incentive to action? 
It is true I was not yet sufficiently able to enlarge to a 
very great extent my enterprise ; but patience and perse- 
verance I was confident would at no distant day crown my 
efforts with success, and I should be no longer a hired 
menial, subservient to the whims and fancies of moneyed 
men for my existence. 



CHAPTER VII. 

A NEW TEAR — ANOTHER WORLD — ORIGIN OF THOUGHTS — FLO- 
RISTS — WHAT I LEARNED — A GREENHOUSE — HOW IT WAS 
BUILT — COST OF GREENHOUSE. 

A new year had dawned upon me, and a second year's 
work was in prospective. As to what it should be I had 
not fully determined. 

Perseverance and application during my first year's 
trial were all that ensured to me what success I had re- 
ceived. As an experiment, it had practically demonstrated 
the possibility of increased success, according to the ability 
I should devote to it. Unlike other business, I was not 
obliged to wait for a customer to drop in to buy of what I 
had to sell. I was not at all dependent upon the state of 
trade, nor did I have to hobnob with friends to influ- 
ence their custom, slight as it might be. Mother Earth 
was all with whom I had to deal for my success. 

The prospects of a winter before me at first appeared 
rather pleasant, as I felt a need of recreation from my 
duties for my overworked mind ; but as the month of Sep- 
tember began to wear wearily away, each day began to 
grow longer. My ambition relaxed. I did not feel that 

51 



52 



strong stimulation which moved me on, and gradually I 
began to long for something with which to occupy my mind. 
It is with great anticipation of pleasure that those few days 
of vacation from the close confinement and harrowing 
business cares, which the young clerk is granted once 
a year, are looked forward to. I used to look upon it as a 
boon of happiness ; but alas ! a few days of participation 
would suffice, and, notwithstanding all the pleasure and 
rest I derived, I found myself often wishing myself back 
again in my old routine. I could not bare to be idle, for 
to me it was the hardest work I could perform. The 
cause was plainly attributed to the lack of anything with 
which to occupy my mind, and such were my feelings, dur- 
ing the first weeks of September. Unable to endure this 
feeling, I began to look around for some means that I might 
avail myself of, for the more proper occupation of my 
thoughts and spare hours, which would help me on in the 
course I had begun. Not but that there was an abundance 
of ways with which to pass my time, in convivial pleas- 
ures, among my numerous friends, in so large a city ; but 
a feeling possessed me to be no longer wasting my time 
in that from which I derived only temporary enjoyment 
and pleasure, but to be laying up for myself something 
more tangible for the great future before me. I was at a 
loss, for some time, to devise anything that was within my 
reach or circumstances. 

We are all occasionally subject to loss of friends in this 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 53 

world, who pass to another and happier abiding-place ; 
and though bereaved at parting with them, their departure 
always brings with it many beneficial lessons, not only as 
warnings of the inevitable result of all our struggles and 
triumphs in this life, but of the hope of a brighter home 
above. Upon such occasions it is the custom of presiding 
clergymen to attempt to rekindle anew within us a true 
sense of what we are, and to' inculcate in our hearts lessons 
of a deep and moral nature. No person, perhaps, was 
more keenly sensible to such truth than myself, with the 
strong and naturally sympathetic disposition I po'ssessed. 
I could not deny the deep impression it made upon me, 
when attending the last sad rites devoted to a long and 
cherished friend, for whose loss I had been called to 
mourn. 

But these thoughts were not all which occupied my mind ; 
for I was yet a mortal, and susceptible to all the scenes 
and incidents of a young and active life. I viewed with 
pleasure the affection displayed by the relatives of the 
deceased, in the neat and silver-tipped burial-case, made 
more heavenly and beautiful by the profuse adornments 
of flowers and wreaths, composed of many varieties which 
I observed were quite out of their season, and as I turned 
from the grave, musing upon the uncertainties of life and 
the vanities of this world, these facts became blended with 
the flowers I had just observed ; for, like flowers, we spring 
up and have our day, we bloom and fulfil our mission, and 



54 



then pass away from this earth to be no more. But flowers, 
I thought, are not always in season, and yet I distinctly 
remembered beholding these emblems of purity oft-' 
times before, upon similar occasions, when the chilling and 
howling blasts of winter were having their reign un- 
checked. From whence, then, were these immortals pro- 
cured, since they could not live when all other vegetation 
succumbed to the ruling tempests? True, from the all- 
wise and merciful Giver of all things; but it must be 
through the agency of man. 

Seemingly shameful for man thus to gather his spoils from 
the dead. But a moment, — had I not seen them under 
other circumstances ? The opera, theatre, and other fash- 
ionable resorts were favored with them in such abundance 
as to be cast at the feet of those to whom they would ten- 
der a mark of appreciation ; and here was a lesson of ob- 
servation, and, thus musing, I resolved to search out the 
human agency through which people were thus favored with 
such delicacies. 

What was most strange was that I should for years have 
passed over the same daily walk, and given no more than a 
passing notice to the many signs of florists which hung out 
over my pathway. But now, I was a cultivator of the soil, 
and I was interested ; before, I was blind and saw not. I 
ventured to make a call of inquiry, and the kind and genial 
manner with which I was received, and the free and will- 
ing manner in which they imparted all information desired, 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 55 

rather pleased me, and I said, surely these are not men, — so 
unlike the crabbed, selfish, and reticent persons with whom 
my life had been passed. No tricks of trade, and no secret 
with them which they feared to tell lest it should damage 
their interests, as among mercantile professions, did I find, 
as, one after another, their long glass houses I visited, filled 
with every variety of choice and rare plants. The more I 
saw, and the more I learned, the more I was pressed to 
venture my bark upon this stream. My lease would not 
expire until April and I could easily continue my experi- 
ment upon another tack. It was the last week in Septem- 
ber, and a little late ; but, with speed, I was advised that I 
could succeed. From that moment I was a florist; but 
there was to be no might succeeds with me, for I was 
going to succeed. My first work, then, as a florist, was 
to gather in all my articles not needed during the winter, 
and place them under shelter ; then lay out my ground for 
the erection of a small greenhouse, the building and stock- 
ing of which would be my first and greatest expense. 
Plans of various kinds of greenhouses were consulted and 
studied out. Those which seemed most practicable were 
attended with an expense far beyond my means. I was, 
therefore, thrown upon my own resources, and planned my 
own way out. A greenhouse that should be cheap and 
good for a season was all that I needed, for, in all proba- 
bility, I should have to remove it from the premises in 
April. 



56 



It was the twentj-fourth day of September before I 
broke ground as a florist. The most requisite step was to 
mark out my ground to allow the greenhouse to stand north 
and south, the object being to give me a good southern ex- 
posure, thus securing the full effect of the sun's rays the 
entire day. I laid out a piece of ground forty feet long 
and eleven feet wide, which I contracted to have excavated 
to the depth of two feet for twelve dollars, including the 
setting of twelve common oak fence-posts ten feet apart 
on each side and two on each end. These I sawed off to 
within three feet of the level of the ground. Upon them I 
placed a skeleton roof, or frame of rafters. This left me 
a space of four feet. between each, for which I ordered sash 
to fit, and attached every other one with a leather hinge 
that I might tilt them up when necessary for ventilation. 
The sides I then boarded up tight, and threw the earth up 
against them even with the eaves, to keep out frost. At 
one end I built a little workshop and potting-house, ten 
by twenty, and twelve feet high, making a little loft for 
storage. This was a skeleton, built principally of boards, 
and board roof, with the cracks battened up. 

Here was my cosy little greenhouse complete in two 
days, and as I walked through it I thought it almost good 
enough to live in. Upon the inside I had five feet clear 
in height and four and one-half feet bench room on each 
side, leaving a passage-way of two feet. This gave me 
three hundred and sixty feet of bench room, and just room 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 57 

enough left to work with ease, but none to spare for visit- 
ors. I procured a large stove or heater, and placed it 
in the workshop and ran the pipes all around under the 
benches, at a cost of sixty-seven dollars. 

But one thing was now wanting to make it complete fur 
operations, which was water, and the means of applying it. 
The facilities of the city for this indispensable are not suf- 
ficiently prized, it being so easily brought into the house 
and into any room we like ; but in this instance I appre- 
ciated the fact, and straightway availed myself of the privi- 
lege, and had pipes laid connecting with the main and 
brought it into my workshop at an expense of twenty-five 
dollars, and with hose so adjusted that I could shower all 
the benches in a very few minutes. 

Believing everything now complete, I invited in Mr. 
Clarke, a florist, who had been exceedingly kind to me, to 
point out any deficiency I had overlooked. He acknowl- 
edged everything perfect, but suggested a coat of white- 
wash all over my glass roof upon the inside, as he said the 
rays of the sun would be more evenly diversified, and, 
besides, its sharpness sometimes would prove injurious. I 
adopted his suggestion forthwith, believing "an ounce of 
prevention worth a pound of cure." 

My expense thus far was as follows : — 

For sashes and glass, $76 00 

" labor excavating, 12 00 

" carpenter's work, 24 00 



53 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR. 

For posts, lumber, etc., $35 00 

" heater and pipes, 07 00 

" hose and water pipes, $20; incidentals, $5, 25 00 



Total cost of greenhouse, .... $240 00 

This was my first and greatest expense, and the first of 
October found all in trim, although my pocket was some- 
what lightened, and I had but one hundred and eighty-one 
dollars left m working capital. I was contriving to econo- 
mize on my salary, and by spring seventy dollars from 
this source would be added to my capital. The days be- 
gan to grow a little bleak, and the variegated colors of the 
foliage on every hand were but the forerunner of the cold 
and dreary winter yet to come. My castle was built, and 
what cared I for rude winter's chilly blasts ? Time and 
tide wait for no man, and so I hasted away to stock my 
little greenhouse, under the advice and direction of my 
friend Clarke, the florist. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

STOCKING OF GREENHOUSE — NEARLY A FAILURE — UNFAITHFUL- 
NESS OF HIRED HELP — TEMPERATURE — RUDIMENTS OF FLORI- 
CULTURE. 

The stocking of a greenhouse was at that time no small 
matter, as I was more green than any plant I might place 
in it. I must confess I had great diffidence and little cour- 
age after reaching this point. 

Mr. Clarke had taken great interest in my affairs, and 
did much in the way of encouraging advice, and occasion- 
ally dropped in of an evening to see how I was getting 
along. His favors, though seemingly small, were of mate- 
rial aid to me, and I have ever felt under many obliga- 
tions to him. As it would be utterly impossible for me to 
raise plants on bare boards, my first step was to procure 
and make a soil in which to grow them. Before doing 
this, however, it was necessary for me to know what flow- 
ers I intended to cultivate ; this depended again upon the 
wants of the plants, and the temperature they required, — 
some requiring a heavier atmosphere than others ; and hav- 
ing but one greenhouse, it was a matter of no little impor- 
tance, and one upon which I could not act without advice. 

59 



60 



It being decided upon I proceeded to make a soil of the 
following proportions : Two good wagon loads of well- 
rotted compost, one of meadow muck, and four loads of 
fine sand, which I thoroughly mixed together, and spread 
about six inches deep in boxes about two feet wide, made 
by cutting in sections a lot of old soap-boxes, and then 
placed them upon the benches. I had also procured a load 
of fine broken stones, a layer of which had been put upon 
the bottom of the boxes, to act as a drain, and the bottom 
of the boxes perforated with holes to let off the water. The 
sum total expended for all of these articles amounted to 
just fifteen dollars. Another layer of white sand, about 
two inches, was spread over the surface, when it was pre- 
pared for the reception of my plants. My first invoice of 
plants was one hundred tea-roses for thirty-five dollars, 
and two hundred heliotropes for thirty dollars, and every 
day was devoted to setting them out. This work being 
accomplished there was considerable room left, for I had 
set them very closely together, feeling the importance 
of economizing room as much as possible under glass. I 
concluded to fill in, without overcrowding, and allowing 
for the increase of stock, a few more desirable plants, 
leaving violets until the last to fill up with. The following 
summary will give an idea of what my stock consisted, and 
their cost : — 

100 tea-rose plants, for $35 00 

200 heliotropes, " SO 00 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 61 



200 carnations, for $20 00 



100 tuberoses, 
50 heaths, 
50 japonicas, 
50 bouvardias, 

500 violets, 



20 00 
20 00 
4 00 
10 00 
30 00 



Total cost of stock, $169 00 

By referring to the cost of the greenhouse, it will be 
seen that the expense of building it had covered all the 
profits of the summer's labors within one dollar. The 
cost of stock for the same covered all the savings of my 
salary for one year within one dollar. According to the 
figures, then, there were left just two dollars as working 
capital. 

The difficulty was somewhat obviated, the whole amount 
of cost of the plants purchased from Mr. Clarke not being 
required down, and which favor left about eighty dollars' 
capital on hand. This was quite a risk, although no 
greater in proportion than the risk taken in the summer, 
yet there was this difference : Flowers were a new and 
strange product, and I was not as confident of success in 
my undertaking as in the summer. My first effort met with 
very bad luck; for I had but just got everything set out, 
when I found my plants, some of them all wilted down, 
and came very near losing every one. Calling in Mr. Clarke 
at once, he saw at a glance that I had neglected to water 
them after transplanting them. It was quite fortunate to 



62 



discover it, even at the last moment, and with the combined 
skill and experience of friend Clarke, I acting as his ser- 
vant in everything, we succeeded in restoring them to life 
in a few days. Very fortunately, extreme cold weather 
did not set in until the last of October, and thus a greater 
loss was not suffered. I was immediately thereafter sub- 
jected to a sharp lecture from Mr. Clarke, upon carefulness 
and observation, which I shall never forget. It was worthy 
of emanating from a greater philosopher, and contained 
sentiments well adapted to people of all classes of business. 
Were it not for my poor memory I would give it in full ; 
but, suffice it to say, I was forced to make up my mind that 
thereafter I would try and attend more closely to my busi- 
ness. The first few weeks were weeks of great anxiety, 
fearing lest again, by some little carelessness, some trifling 
attention might be overlooked which would be of vital 
importance to the little army of plants now under my con- 
trol. One great precaution necessary was to have the 
right temperature at all times ; and this was no easy task, 
as may be imagined, where such a variety of plants were 
growing under one roof, and nearly every one requiring a 
different grade of temperature. Large florists manage so 
as to have but one or two varieties in one house, and thus 
the temperature is more easily graded to the requirements 
of the plant. The temperature prescribed for heliotropes 
upon a sunshiny day is seventy-five degrees, for cloudy 
days sixty-five degrees, and sixty degrees during the night, 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 63 

— a variation from which of more than five degrees at any 
one time might be productive of sad results ; while violets 
required but sixty degrees in sunshine and fifty-five de- 
grees in cloudy weather, and some of my other plants 
called for seventy-five degrees in sunshine. Each varia- 
tion, therefore, would require ventilation or increase of 
heat, thus making care and watchfulness the most neces- 
sary of all things. Being unprepared to accommodate all 
my plants in all their requirements the matter was com- 
promised, and the temperature adjusted as follows : seventy 
degrees for sunshine, sixty-five degrees for cloudy weather, 
and sixty degrees by night. For variation of temperature 
at extreme end of the greenhouse five degrees were al- 
lowed, and the plants arranged in such manner as to bring 
those requiring most heat nearest to the heater, and those 
requiring least heat, such as violets, at the far end. A 
thermometer, accompanied by a card marked with these 
variations, hung at each end of the house for convenience 
and safety. This constant care required some person in 
attendance during my absence through the day, after the 
cold weather set in and fires had been started. During 
the . night 1 slept in the workhouse, having a bed made up 
there ; and, having accustomed myself to sleep with very 
light covering, if the temperature went down too low I 
was sure to wake. This was all very well arranged and 
carried out ; but soon I found that faithfulness was not 
always to be had for money. The first boy thought more 



64 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

of play than attending to his business, and I was forced to 
make several changes, and thereby several times came near 
other losses. At last, a faithful boy was obtained ; but hav- 
ing had my confidence so much shaken by the instability 
of his predecessors, I could not place as much reliance 
upon him as he was worthy of. 

In some of my purchases there had been thrown in a 
few fuchsias, in which I took a special delight ; for they 
were a novelty in themselves, and there were just enough 
to give experience in growing them, and add a little variety 
to my stock. 

A few of the lessons I was obliged to learn, and which 
are, as they say at school, the "rudimentary principles" 
of floriculture, may not come amiss in this place. First 
of all is temperature, upon which I have already dilated 
at length. The next important is the proper watering of 
plants. It will not answer to dash a pail of water all 
around, as you would water a tree or vine, for these are 
delicate. It should be done by means of a fine sprinkler, 
attached to the end of the hose or watering-pot, thus re- 
sembling a drizzling shower or mist in its application. 
Neither should the water be too cold. When watering, it 
should be done thoroughly, and if in pots fill them full ; 
but never water a plant unless it requires it, and then only 
in the morning, and when the sun is shining, if possible. 
About twice a week water should be used, previously 
saturated with guano, or some good fertilizer, and applied 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 65 

with a watering-pot. Another important item is the keep- 
ing in subjection all insect life, which can be accomplished 
in no better way than by fumigating once or twice a week. 
Tobacco is best for this purpose. Weeds will grow here as 
well as elsewhere, and too much care cannot be exercised 
to keep them clear, and the more carefully they are 
watched, the easier it will be to keep the plants in good 
order and looking well. 



CHAPTER IX. 

MARKETING FLOWERS — WHAT THEY BROUGHT — RESULTS OF WINTER'S 

WORK. 

The first few weeks were necessarily weeks of great 
anxiety, unaccustomed as I was to the cultivation and 
growing of such delicate plants ; and especially at a time 
and in a manner contrary to their nature, and knowing 
that the least amount of carelessness on my part might cast 
away all- that had been ventured in them, which was truly 
my all. 

Thus was my new-found occupation continually the 
source of much uneasiness and fear, and it was some con- 
siderable time before a feeling of perfect control in their 
management was given me. Gradually one after another 
of the plants sprang up into active life, and with them my 
confidence was slowly restored. As late as the first of No- 
vember no returns whatever were received, and expense 
was still the ruling item, which was increased by the cold 
weather with which the month was ushered in, and the 
necessity of starting fires. Coal and wood, to the amount 
of twenty-four dollars, were laid in at once, and prepara- 
tions for the winter blasts now upon me were fully made. 

G6 



FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR. 67 

In a few days many of the plants began to disclose 
miniature buds as signs of flowering. Among the first 
to unfold its colored petals was the violet ; but these were 
few, and mostly some which were more forward in the 
transplanting. In the middle of the month I ventured 
forth to find a market, with a few flowers in a basket upon 
my arm. 

These had been picked and thrown into the basket with- 
out much assorting, and, a market being found, I could 
scarcely get any price at all. The great detriment was 
the careless manner in which I had put them up and in 
which I had offered them for sale. A good lesson was 
learned, however, and I received kindly the advice given 
about packing them in parcels, assorted, and all of a kind 
in a parcel. The next lot was sent in better shape, and 
met a more ready sale. In view of the approach of the 
holidays, a greater demand was apparent, and the prices 
were gradually rising. ' At this time it was a matter of no. 
little importance that I should have clear weather and sun- 
shine for the development of my flowers, for without it I 
would have none. After a pleasant day, evenings were 
spent in the greenhouse cutting and assorting the flowers, 
which I placed in a basket, the bottom of which had been 
first covered with moss, and dampened. This retained the 
moisture, and kept the flowers in good condition until they 
reached the market. Travelling to the city every day, I 
carried my basket of flowers and delivered them in the 



68 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

morning, receiving the money therefor. After a cloud y 
day, having no flowers to cut, the time was devoted to 
weeding and other necessary work to assist the growth of 
the plants. 

I append below one or two samples of w T hat I carried to 
market nearly every day, from the first of December to the 
first of February. The following was marketed the first of 
December, and was as small a bill of flowers as I had 
during the winter. It consisted of : — 

250 violets, @ $1.00 per hundred, . . . $ 2 50 

5 doz. heliotropes, @ 25 cents per doz. . 1 25 

2 " tea-roses, @ 50 " " ... 1 00 

3 " bouvardias, @ 25 " " . . 75 

$5 50 

As the holidays drew near, and from that time until the 
last week in January, prices rose very high, and my 
receipts often ran as high as eighteen dollars and twenty 
dollars per day, depending, of course, upon the quantities I 
brought. It was necessary to exercise great care, so as to 
bring a good and salable assortment each day. Many of 
the little details connected with their culture, and the man- 
ner of treatment of all the plants to favor and develop them 
and bring out the flowers, would not be admissible within so 
limited a space. A good florist, of experience, to advise 
with is more preferable in this case than any book-theory, 
and I must content myself, therefore, with giving the ac- 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 



69 



count of my success, rather than attempt to give the de- 
tails of my work. 

The following is a copy of a bill sold January fifth, and 
the largest in amount I disposed of that season : — 



400 violets, @ $1.25 per hundred, . 
7 dozen tea-roses, @ $2.00 per dozen, 
6 " heliotropes, @ 40 cents per dozen, 

4 " heaths, @ 30 " 

5 " japonicas, @ 25 " 
4 " tuberoses, @ 1.20 " 
3 " carnations, @ 30 " 
2 " fuchsias, @ 75 " 
1 " bouvardias, @ 20 " 



Total, $31 25 



$5 00 


14 00 


2 40 


1 20 


1 25 


4 80 


90 


1 50 


20 



My average daily receipts for the entire two months 
was $6 48|. This was without any allowance for ex- 
penses. There seemed no particular limit, which could be 
depended upon, with plants, as to the number of buds and 
flowers each would yield, neither do all plants yield alike. 
Some bear profusely, and others not at all; while many of 
the same kind will bear flowers, and others will bear none 
at all ; as an instance of the latter, not more than one half 
of my tea-roses yielded any flowers at all. 

A tea-rose plant will generally give from six to twenty 
buds, if any at all. Carnations yield from ten to fifty, and 
bring from two to four cents each. Nearly all plants 
must have their appointed season of rest. Even as man' 



70 



requires sleep, so the vegetable kingdom must have its 
repose from labor to prepare it for future healthy and vig- 
orous life. Flower-bearing plants, if cultivated in the sum- 
mer, must rest in winter, according to the all-wise dispen- 
sation of Providence ; and, to perfect this natural law, 
plants cultivated out of season must rest in season; and 
that this work may go successfully forward great care is 
necessary, to put them in a proper condition to keep them 
and retain them inactive and healthy. As the plants in 
the greenhouse had nearly closed the labor I had forced 
upon them, I was now long and busily engaged in remov- 
ing the bulbs and roots, and preparing them for rest while 
I introduced bedding plants, for transplanting early in the 
spring to open ground. I had at this time no idea of 
giving up my ground the coming summer, thinking I 
could re-lease it without difficulty, and proposed to have 
plants much earlier than the previous season. 

My expenses and receipts from the flower business stood 
as follows : — 



Eeceipts from sale of flowers, . 


. . • 


. $401 98 


Paid boy for ten weeks, @ $2.00, . 


$20 00 




" for fuel, .... 


40 00 




" " car-fare and ex-selling, 


22 20 




'* « tools, etc. . 


15 00 




" " fertilizers, etc. . , * 


15 00 




Interest on investment, . , 


5 60 


$117 80 






Net profit, . , 


. $284 18 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 71 

Thus closed my winter's labors quite satisfactorily, with 
a greater gain than had I been idle ; besides, I had the 
advantage of a greenhouse for propagating my earlj bud- 
ding plants. 



CHAPTER X. 

BEDDING PLANTS — SPRING WORK — SUMMER CROPS — SECOND TEAR'S 
BALANCE. 

By the first week in February my greenhouse benches 
were all cleared, the bulbs all stored in a dry place, and 
potted plants set aside for the season. The next work was 
that of removing the soil upon the benches, which was 
followed by the sowing of lettuce and tomato seed. As 
there was room for much more than would be needed for 
my own use, I should have a quantity of plants for sale 
in the spring, which would bring me in a few dollars, in 
addition to which would be an amount saved equal to 
what I had been out of pocket for the same plants pur- 
chased the previous season. 

It is a farmer's rule never to buy what he can raise him- 
self; and the same rule would be applicable to all kinds 
of business with much success. A wise philosopher has 
said that a penny saved is two pence earned ; but alas ! how 
few appear to follow this rule ! With eager interest I 
watched for the first signs of life from the seeds I had 
sown, and a week's time was sufficient to gratify my an- 
ticipations in that respect. 

72 



FIVE THOUSAND A TEAR. 73 

Until they took good root, not much care was required 
to keep the weeds under subjugation. About the first of 
March I began to thin out the smallest, thus allowing 
those more forward to mature more rapidly, and to a 
greater perfection. By the first of April I had as fine a 
lot of plants as I had ever seen ; and as far superior to 
what I purchased the previous spring as anything well 
could be. I at once advertised my plants, and found a 
very ready sale for them. Many persons came the second 
time, and sent others ; while many purchased double the 
quantity they had intended, because they looked so well, 
as they would say ; until I was unable to supply the de- 
mand without robbing myself. Being also about the first 
in market, I had a great advantage over others. My 
lease was now expiring, and I must enter upon some new 
arrangement, if possible, and this was a fitting time while 
my stock could be disposed of readily if necessary. It 
had not entered my head, however, that I could not secure 
my ground another season. 

What was my surprise, then, when, upon applying to 
my landlord for a renewal of my lease, I received a flat 
denial ! His only excuse was, he intended to build in the 
fall, and did not want me in the way ; after some consider- 
able persuasion, however, I secured a lease until Sep- 
tember first, by paying seventy-five dollars for the six 
months. From my greenhouse I had sold five thousand 
tomato plants at fifty cents per dozen, and two thousand 



74 



lettuce at twenty-five cents per dozen ; leaying an abun- 
dance for my own use. 

Reviewing the labors of the previous season and their 
results, and knowing my plants were so advanced as to 
bring my truck into a much earlier market, and also hav- 
ing in view the limitation of my lease, I resolved to rest 
my labors with the two crops, lettuce and tomatoes, and 
perhaps sowing turnips as an after crop. 

The same labor was required, the same difficulties to 
be met, and the same obstacles to be overcome, and just 
as many weeds to fight this season as last. The weather 
was more dry, and to meet this I brought the hose from 
my greenhouse into active service. 

I had discharged my boy, and hired a man, upon the 
first of May, at fifty dollars per month. The yield of my 
crop was perceptibly no larger this year ; but with in- 
creased facilities and more help, with more advanced and 
better plants, I was enabled to reach an earlier market. 
The first marketing was fully two weeks in advance of 
last year, and five hundred heads of lettuce brought me 
twelve cents each. 

My greenhouse was filled with a fresh supply as soon 
as the first were sold, and then I transplanted to open 
ground as fast as I sold my crop off, which brought me a 
fair second crop ; a second marketing of fifteen hundred 
heads brought eight cents each, and five hundred more 
subsequently brought five cents. The second crop brought 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 75 

me two cents each for two thousand heads. Early in June 
I had marketed one hundred baskets of tomatoes at one 
dollar and seventy-five cents per basket; a week later, 
another hundred brought me one dollar ; the balance I 
sold on the vines for twenty dollars. By the middle of 
July my grounds were all cleared and sowed to turnips, 
the last crop of the season. 

At this time I discharged my help, as a matter of re- 
trenchment in expenses, and worked out the rest of the 
season alone. My operations on this little farm were now 
drawing to a close, and soon I must bid adieu to this 
familiar spot, after two seasons of the most pleasant and 
encouraging associations of my whole life. Here had I 
nourished my cherished plans into action, and brought 
them to a successful issue. I had clearly proved some- 
thing could be done to alleviate my condition by my own 
exertions. It must be carried further, but not here ; a 
new field with wider scope I must find, and devote myself 
anew to more extended labors. At this point it is perhaps 
most fitting to sum up the labors of these two eventful 
years in my history, as I draw to a close the scenes in 
and about this little half-acre plot, every portion of which 
I had learned well to know. Starting then with the bal- 
ance I had on hand at the close of my first year, I give 
my 



76 



FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR ; 



SECOND YEAR'S TRIAL-BALANCE. 



Balance from first year, . 
Sale of flowers, 

" bedding plants, 

" lettuce, 

" tomatoes, . 

" turnips, 
Salary, . 

Inventory of greenhouse, 
" stock, . 
" tools, . 



$381 14 



$401 98 




378 00 




265 00 




295 00 




28 00 




800 00 






2,167 98 




. 


. 200 00 


. 


. 200 00 


• 


. 60 00 



EXPENSES. 



$3,009 12 



Cost of greenhouse, 


$240 00 


a 


stock, 


169 00 


«< 


running greenhouse, . 


117 80 


<< 


for fuel, . 


24 00 


(< 


" seed, 


15 00 


(i 


'* fertilizers, . . . 


35 00 


tt 


11 ploughing, . 


5 00 


a 


" 100 new baskets, . 


20 00 


M 


" labor 2h months, . 


125 00 


u 


" transportation, 


. 15 00 


it 


" rent, 


75 00 


<c 


" books, papers, etc., 


. 23 00 


Wear and tear of tools, . 


. 28 00 


Interest on investment, . 


. 12 56 


Persor 


al expenses, . 


. 647 52 

C>1 Kn-i of 







Amount of balance, 



$1,457 24 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 77 

Amount of balance brought forward, #1,457 14 
Deduct savings for 1 year, . . 152 44 
" balance on hand first of year, 381 14 

■ #533 58 



Net profits over expenses, . . #923 66 

By the above statement it will be seen that the last year 
had exceeded the first by five hundred and forty-two dollars 
and fifty-two cents ; but as over six hundred dollars were the 
result of my greenhouse in flowers and bedding plants, this 
would make' the comparison in yield lower than the pre- 
vious season. At this time I had nearly fifteen hundred 
dollars in hand, and was just that amount better off 
in the world than eighteen months before, or I would 
have been if I had remained plodding on in my old ac- 
customed way at my business in New York. Again, it 
will be seen, my net proceeds were just one hundred and 
twenty-three dollars in excess of my yearly salary, and all 
of this from a half-acre lot, by the exercise of a little 
gumption and forethought. While I regretted parting 
with my half acre, so much endeared to me, I could not 
upon the whole say I was really sorry. It was evident 
the time had come when I was to choose between two 
callings. 

The latter had proved itself able for my support in as 
good style as my salary had formerly given me, than 
which for the present I would ask no better. 



78 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR. 

At that time my support was the all-important ques- 
tion, and which is clearly the vital question to all per- 
sons of small means ; for it is necessary, when among 
strangers in a strange land, to know first how we are to 
live before we can aiford to speculate or take any risks. 
Having this point accomplished, I felt confident an all-wise 
Providence would continue to guide me safely to the end. 

A larger field I must seek, and rely solely upon my 
labors, for I could not longer hold my position in the city, 
and give this business the attention which it merited. 

I had quite a little stock in trade, besides the green- 
house, which had cost me two hundred and forty dollars. 
All could be taken with me, except this, at a little expense. 
To move the greenhouse would cost me a hundred dollars, 
and an offer of two hundred dollars from my landlord was 
accepted for it. My stock of flowering plants had increased 
until they were really of more value than invoiced. All 
in all, all is well that ends well. 



CHAPTER XL 

REMOVAL — HUNTING UP A FARM — A FIVE-ACRE PLOT — PEOPLE'8 
CURIOSITY — A CRYSTAL PALACE — HAPPY HOURS AND THOUGHTS. 

Upon the beginning of my third year, my first duties 
were to look up a farm suitable to my wants, which I 
found no easy task. When I set out upon my search, I 
found a surprising number of farms, all for sale ; but most 
of them were too large for my limited means ; while every 
small place of three or four acres, that was in any way 
eligibly situated, was held at a high figure, and so improved 
in many cases as not to meet my wishes. It was a curious 
circumstance to notice how eager every land-owner was to 
sell, and to hear the many absurd reasons for selling. The 
quantities in market were enormous, and real estate agents 
were abundant, with large books filled with descriptions 
of elegant country-seats and farms for sale. Some could 
be had for one-fourth the money down, while others were 
ready to exchange for city property, merchandise, or other 
traps. It seemed as if they all wanted " anything rather 
than a country place on their hands. But one thing I 
saw very plainly, that they were anxious to get a better 
bargain than they had to give. City merchants, thriving 

79 



80 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

mechanics, clerks, and even country-bred people who had 
accumulated a little surplus money, seemed to think the 
city was their only proper sphere. Many gave as reasons 
that their wives were not suited. How nice it is to have 
a wife's opinion to fall back upon, rather than boldly 
shoulder the responsibility one's self ! Some found farming 
did not pay. Others had taken land to secure a debt, and 
wished to sell to realize their money ; others, tired of 
country life, wished to embark in business in the city. 
Change of some kind appeared to be a monomaniac 
idea running rampant with all the country people ; and 
this was not surprising when real estate was bringing 
such high prices. It gives me pleasure to say, however, 
that there were some who appeared to appreciate country 
life, and who could not be induced to think of selling. 
There were apparently two streams of emigration, one to 
the city and another out of it; but the former much ex- 
ceeded the latter. Certainly they had never experienced 
the perplexities of maintaining an existence in an over- 
crowded city. Yet with all this I was not discouraged, 
nor to be thwarted in my plans. My lease had expired, 
and my stock was turned out of doors, which must be 
speedily sheltered or else be lost. The past year had 
proved my business adequate to my support, and as well 
might I go a distance as hover in the vicinity of the city. 
Accordingly I cast myself loose from my business in the 
city, and started out fifty miles away into the interior, 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 81 

among the green-clad hills and dales of old Connecticut, 
where, fortunately, I found just the spot I had long been 
searching after. It was a little farther from market than I 
had anticipated ; yet it had a railroad with several trains a 
day, and was only two short miles from the sound, down 
which ran weekly two market-boats, making the trip in 
twenty-four hours. This was a desirable means of ship- 
ping produce, than which, combined with the facilities of 
the railroad, I could ask nothing better. The tract con- 
sisted of five acres, all tillable land, and was the portion 
set aside to the wife of a well-to-do city merchant from her 
father's estate. After much talk I bargained for the place 
for six hundred and fifty dollars, two hundred dollars of 
which was to be paid down, the balance within three years, 
with interest. It had upon it one solitary house, which was 
rapidly going to decay and ruin, and an old shanty, which 
had been used for a horse and cow. being filled to their 
knees with old compost. It was a hard sight ; but it could 
be made very acceptable. The day I entered into posses- 
sion I cast my eye around, and saw so much to be done 
that it was with difficulty I could determine what to com- 
mence upon first. I was now my own master, and lord of 
all I surveyed. Happily, the little furniture which I had 
owned several years, and used in furnishing my own room 
while boarding, came in good play, and I at once set to 
work to domesticate myself in the old house. 

Thanks to a kind mother, who had taught me when a 
6 



82 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

boy, the manner of preparing food, for thereby I was 
enabled to bring it into practice to advantage. With 
abundance of time, the duties were easily performed ; and 
if ever there was a hermit and a bachelor, there was one 
in that old house. This answered very well for a few 
weeks ; but I began to feel out of my sphere, as work out 
of doors drew more liberally upon my time, and I was 
induced to secure a house-keeper. 

My first day's work was performed in the kitchen-cellar, 
cleaning out old rubbish, bottles, and decayed vegetables, 
to make it a fitting receptacle for my stock of plants. 
This was really the hardest day's work I had ; for my am- 
bition led me to such an extent as to work beyond my 
physical strength ; and a lesson I learned, that, if I would 
last long, life must be taken more easily, and labor accord- 
ing to my strength. 

Lumber and material for my new greenhouse had been 
ordered before leaving the city, and came with my other 
goods, together with sashes of a proper size. In a word, 
I had duplicated the greenhouse previously built, only, 
instead of one, I should build three side by side and one 
hundred feet long, with a potting and workshop upon the 
end. These I erected entirely alone, thereby saving some 
expense, and reducing the cost of the greenhouses to six 
hundred twenty-eight dollars. My stock of plants had so 
increased as to occupy one whole greenhouse and one half 
of another. To this stock I added twelve varieties of verbe- 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 83 

nas, true to name, calculating to propagate the plants from 
them for a spring market. Particulars of how I managed 
them will be given in another chapter. 

Having moved into a neighborhood of entire strangers, 
I found them much more congenial companions than I Jiad 
expected. Their curiosity was unbounded, surpassing, 
apparently, any other faculty they possessed. A country 
town is much given to gossip ; and not alone is it confined 
to the old ladies, but the men take up the cue, and few 
there are who do not only know all their neighbors for 
miles away, but everything in regard to them. I was a 
new-comer, and, of course, was the subject of general 
inquiry for a time. The people among whom I had 
come were a sturdy set of old-country people for genera- 
tions back, with strong, puritanical ideas; following a 
long and safe distance in the rear of all improvements, 
believing their old ways best, until others were well tried ; 
caring well for every penny, and loth to take any risk, 
unless a sure return was clear to be seen. They had lived 
on for years in the same old routine as their fathers 
before them ; cultivating onions, potatoes, and grain, year 
in and year out. To them the new-comer was of no little 
importance, and as they drove their ox-teams by, they 
must come to a dead halt, step in, and have a talk. 

The building of my greenhouse set their eyes all wide 
open ; and upon me they pronounced every kind of bene- 
diction but success, and turning away, shaking their 



84 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR. 

heads, they said, " Surely I was a very rash young fellow, 
putting so much money at so great a risk in these glass 
houses, from which I could never get returns for my 
labor. They had always heard the city folks had wild 
ideas, and, indeed, I was a novelty. Why, this beat 
anything they had ever hearn tell of, and they wouldn't 
believed it, until they had come and seen it for them- 
selves." I could not resist the temptation to laugh at 
them, for I paid no more heed to them than to so much 
wind ; and I kept jogging along, first with hammer, and 
saw, and plane, until I saw the completion of my crystal 
palace ; then the fertilizers, with shovel and trowel, were 
brought into action, and my plants set out, bringing all 
of my past experience, with suggestions of reason and 
judgment, to bear upon my work. This work completed, 
every day brought with it something new to do ; and I 
experienced a just pride in fixing up every convenience, 
and making all improvements within my power around 
my new home. I felt a degree of satisfaction unparalleled, 
in being the owner of my own ground, and felt that my 
labor was not lost. My mind was fully occupied, and 
thus happily days wore away into weeks, and weeks into 
months, through thick and thin, and bitter cold, until 
spring dawned, apparently before its time. 



CHAPTER XII. 

SALES OF FLOWERS • — CULTURE OF THE VERBENA — CUTTINGS — ROOT 
CUTTINGS — PROPAGATION. 

The season kept open late into November this year, 
and favored me in not requiring fires and in a saving of 
fuel. In attentions to my plants I was favored with my 
past experience, and strove to remember all the lessons of 
friend Clarke ; for he was not near at hand now to run to 
in cases of emergency. My education as a florist was in 
no wise complete, although a winter's work added many new 
facts to my store. The advantages of having daylight to 
work by were many, and duly appreciated ; and many 
otherwise idle hours were devoted to study and observa- 
tion. 

With the middle of December came my first lot of 
flowers, -which were carried to market in person ; and 
from this time until the middle of February, my average 
sales of flowers were eleven dollars and thirty-three cents 
per day. As before stated, I had purchased a small stock 
of verbenas, and devoted much time to their propagation. 
It was with some difficulty I found that these could be 
successfully cultivated, and I had entered upon an under- 

85 



86 



taking far more serious than I had anticipated. With 
a good stock to commence upon, cuttings were taken 
from the most healthy plants. Each was placed in small 
pots, and left to root. I soon noticed the soil in the pots 
became dry very quickly. I showered them plentifully 
with water, and then they became very dry, rather 
baked in appearance. If allowed to continue, this ap- 
peared to injure the growth of the plant. 

Then I was really puzzled as to what was best. Being 
in the city one day, I ran over and secured a little advice 
from old friend Clarke ; and when I returned home the 
plants all came out of the pots. As quick as ever it could 
be done I made a soil, covered mostly with pure white 
sand, right upon the benches, which retained more moist- 
ure a longer period, and kept the soil well soaked with 
water the first few days. More depends on carefulness if 
one would propagate successfully, and a man who has had 
the management of a greenhouse for a season, with his eyes 
and ears open, will acquire a better theoretic and practical 
knowledge than could be obtained through the medium of 
books ; and, if of fair intelligence and naturally observing 
and studious, he can operate with success. For an ama- 
teur, the next best thing is to have some good friend of 
experience to advise with frequently. 

It is suggested, by an experienced florist, that the 
bottom of the beds should be spread three or four inches 
with refuse hops, tan-bark, or some such material well 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 87 

beaten down, and over this two or three inches of sand, 
giving, as a reason, that passing the heat through them 
from the steam pipes, which should run along under the 
benches, the heat becomes modified, and approaches more 
to that of the hot-bed. Although I agree perfectly with 
this writer, I did not at this time follow that practice, 
but simply spread my benches with sand from six to eight 
inches deep. Cuttings root freely from slips taken from 
young wood ; but great importance should be given to the 
proper time for taking them. I think I may safely say 
that if a soft-wooded plant is bent, and it should break off 
brittle, it is then fit for cuttings ; if it bends, it is then too 
hard. It will root, but more slowly, and will not be 
likely to produce as healthy and vigorous a plant. Many 
florists claim cuttings must be made at a joint; but in 
my experience I have observed the above rule to be of the 
most importance. 

Having prepared my bed of sand in one of my three 
houses, I raised the temperature of the soil to sixty-five 
degrees, which was indicated by plunging the thermometer 
into the sand, to correspond with which the atmospheric 
temperature was kept fifteen degrees less ; with a range 
of five degrees higher or lower; but I kept as 
near to sixty-five degrees bottom heat and atmospheric 
temperature as near fifty degrees as possible at all times. 
Moisture and temperature are the two principal conditions 
upon which the prompt and active life of the cuttings 



88 



depend. In a few days there formed at the bottom of the 
cutting little bulbs, which I took out, and divided the end 
of the cutting into little pieces one-half inch in length, 
which was covered with these bulbs, and spread upon the 
propagating bench, covering them with about one quarter 
of an inch of sand. These were now what is called root 
cuttings, which process helps to increase the plants more 
rapidly than they would from simple cuttings. From the 
time these cuttings were first set out, until the root cut- 
tings began to spring up, I never allowed them to get dry ; 
and the more thoroughly I kept the sand soaked, the more 
successfully they came forward. If a cutting once gets 
wilted, its juices are expended, and it becomes worthless 
for propagating, and only tends to invite the black rust. 
This excess of moisture only appeared necessary in the 
propagation of the verbena. By shading and good venti- 
lation they are less liable to become wilted. Shading is 
effected in different ways, by different florists, every one 
claiming his own way the best. 

Some use canvas thrown over the glass, or bark-matting ; 
some whitewash their glass. A very good way, though in- 
volving some labor and expense, has been recommended, 
which is to make screens of common lath, nailed one inch 
apart to frames made to fit the sash. The least expensive 
for me was the process of whitewashing, which process I 
have always followed, believing it fully as practicable and 
efficient as any. 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 89 

In about ten days the cuttings were all rooting finely, 
and then commenced the process of potting them off in pots, 
two and a half inches in diameter. The small roots, from 
one to one and a half inches in length, grew better, and 
produced finer plants than those allowed to grow longer. 
The latter became woody and hard, and did not strike 
down into the soil as freely as the others ; after which 
observation I concluded that it was a fact, of no little im- 
portance to the propagator, that the earlier they were 
potted after rooting, the better. After they were potted 
they were set on a bench, covered about two inches with 
sand, and freely watered for some days with a sprinkling- 
pot, and treated in every way as if they were still on the 
propagating bench. If at this point they are allowed to 
wilt from drying, or excess of heat, they are liable to be 
sickly plants, and more susceptible to disease. As soon 
as these cuttings appeared to have taken root, and showed 
signs of life, I took care to keep them cool and abundantly 
supplied with air, by putting up or letting down the sash, 
keeping the temperature about forty to forty-five during 
the night, and ten degrees higher during the day. As 
soon as they acquired the proper condition, I again con- 
verted them into cuttings, and repeated the process, — thus 
continually increasing my stock. 

One of the greatest drawbacks to the cultivation of 
the verbena is called the black rust. This enemy ^ 
properly defined, is the verbena mite, — an insect so 



90 FIVE THOUSAND A TEAR. 

small that it cannot be seen by the naked eye, and 
when it has once gained a foothold, it seems to defy 
all efforts to dislodge it. The fumes of tobacco, so 
destructive to all others, seems to fall harmless upon 
it. It has the power of imbedding itself in the leaf, 
and resists all attacks. The only remedy I have found 
is to keep the plants in a healthy and vigorous con- 
dition, and thus the plant is enabled to repel it. When- 
ever a sickly plant appeared I would cut it off, thus forc- 
ing a greater amount of the succulent juices into a smaller 
space, thereby increasing the strength of the plant. If I 
did not succeed thus in restoring the plant to a healthy 
condition, it would come out root and branch. 

Continued fumigation is of the utmost importance in 
the culture of all plants under glass, but perfectly indis- 
pensable in the case of the verbena. It was my practice 
to fumigate all of my houses at least twice a week, and 
sometimes oftener, as a preventive to the aphis or green 
fly, which is very destructive. The ground or blue aphis 
is a very dangerous pest, its field of destruction being the 
roots, at the end of which it affixes itself. The only 
remedy for this is tobacco-water, about the color of tea, 
applied around the roots once or twice each week. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

EXPENSE AND PROFITS OP GREENHOUSES — PURCHASING STOCK — BAD 
BARGAINS — KINDNESS TO ANIMALS — SPRING CROPS — A CONTEST 
AND VICTORY. 

Another spring brought the same work as previous 
seasons, though now much increased ; and by the first of 
March my flower-bearing plants had all been examined, 
and carefully put away. I renewed the soil in my green- 
house, then cleaned and sowed cabbage, tomato, and let- 
tuce seed, passing them through the same treatment as in 
former years. Though but a small number of verbenas at 
first, their rapid increase by propagation had not only 
more than filled the space I had allotted, but even went 
so far as to deprive me of much room I had anticipated 
for bedding plants ; therefore I should have none for sale 
this season. 

The expenses of my greenhouse were larger this year, 
because I had tripled it in size. Being almost constantly 
present myself, and when absent leaving it in charge of 
my house-keeper, I obviated the expense, as well as the 
risk, of a hired boy to watch it. The cost of my fuel and 
fertilizers was not as large, being but double that of my 

91 



92 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

old greenhouse. In building the new greenhouse, I had 
substituted a steam-heating apparatus, — the cost of which 
is estimated in the expense of building, — which had 
steam pipes running under the benches, and gave a better 
heat at a less expense ; for it hardly required any more 
coal than the old stove-heater, and gave a more even heat 
to the whole three houses than the old stove had done to 
one. My verbena plants were removed, soil and all, from 
their little pots, and placed in a small chip basket with a 
handle, one dozen in each, and each basket containing 
twelve kinds. When put in baskets, without naming them, 
I sold them at wholesale, for seventy-five cents, they 
retailing for one dollar. Great trouble and much time 
were required to write names, and place them by each 
kind, and for these a better price is received, they retail- 
ing for one dollar and fifty cents each. I sold verbenas, 
named, at wholesale, for one dollar per basket of one 
dozen each. 

Briefly summing up, my expenses for running the 
greenhouse this season were as follows : — 

Fertilizers and soil, . . . ■ . $38 00 

Fuel, . . . . . . . 67 00 

Transportation, 68 00 

Tools, etc., 24 00 

Pots, 45 00 

1600 baskets, @ 10 c 160 00 

100 doz. verbena plants, @ 1.50, . . 150 00 

Interest on investment, . . . . 21 00 

Total expense, $573 00 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 93 

My stock of verbenas cost the full price, as I bought 
them all named, and by their propagation I had made the 
wonderful increase which enabled me to sell sixteen hun- 
dred baskets, or dozens. I should judge about one quarter 
of that number had been pulled out and thrown away, 
from being sickly or otherwise injured. My receipts this 
season from the greenhouse were as follows : — 

Sales of flowers, gross amount, $679 80 

" 600 doz. verbenas, named, @ $1.00 . . . 600 00 

" 1000 " " unnamed, @ 75 c. . . . 750 00 

• 

Gross receipts, . . . ... . . . $2,029 80 

Deducting expenses, . 573 qq 

Net receipts, $1,156 80 

Figures look very large in gross view ; but did space 
permit, every detail might be more explicitly given, 
and it would not then appear so fabulous. 

My work in the spring was somewhat enlarged, and, 
to facilitate it, and for other work that might occur, I 
deemed it necessary to purchase a span of horses ; and for 
this purpose I laid out two hundred and fifty dollars for 
a team, including one set of harness and a light wagon 
for ninety-five dollars. In other tools, — such as a plough, 
for ten dollars; cultivator, three dollars; harrow, three 
dollars, and other things, five dollars, — I supplied myself. 
I started ploughing as soon as spring opened, which was not 



94 



until the second week in April. I had overlooked the 
fact that my location was among the stony hills of Con- 
necticut, and that I had anything more to do than plough 
my land ; but I soon found it was folly to plough until I 
had first built a stone sled of two thick planks, and spent 
nearly a week in picking up and drawing off the stones 
upon my ground. These I found very acceptable in re- 
pairing several breaches in my fence. The yield of stones 
in some sections of the country — of which this seems to 
be a fair sample — seems to be inexhaustible, yet, when 
laid up in a good fence, become very useful and durable. 
Having ploughed my land, and harrowed it twice over, 
I proceeded to divide it into acre plots, -one of which I 
planted to potatoes, one to tomatoes, one to cabbages, and 
one to lettuce. The remaining portion I devoted to a 
vegetable garden for my own use, and fodder for my 
h^ses. Being desirous of building up my family, and 
entering into the realities of a farmer's life, as well as 
desirous of availing myself of the privileges accruing 
therefrom, by purchasing a few fowls, a pig, and a cow, — 
costing altogether one hundred and fifteen dollars, — I 
seemed to have all that was necessary in the way of 
stock. With my own hands I built a temporary barn, 
with accommodations for the above-named tenants, at a cost, 
for material, of twenty-six dollars. My neighbors ap- 
peared now more hopeful, believing I had taken a few 
sensible steps for the first time during my sojourn among 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 95 

them; but the story of the profits from my greenhouse 
those quaint old people could not exactly believe. 

I cannot say that I always made good bargains in all 
my purchases. One of my horses proved to be very 
balky, and, as I was afterwards informed, had always 
been so, and the seller knew the fact when I purchased 
him ; but, with true Yankee shrewdness, said nothing 
about it, because it did not occur to me to ask him. 
Moreover, the animal had always been treated in the 
most inhuman manner whenever he was disposed to mani- 
fest this bad trait in his character. He balked several 
times with me at first, and I noticed he always awaited 
his accustomed pounding with fear and trembling. Not 
believing in maltreating a dumb animal of any kind, his 
anticipations were never realized at my hands. When- 
ever he showed the disposition of not performing his share 
of the work, I would lay down the reins and pat him a 
little, putting my arms around his neck, and talking to 
him gently and kindly. The vicious look in his eye, on 
such occasions, would soon pass away, and his actions 
would then speak, as plain as they well could, his ap- 
preciation of my kindness. After that it would need but 
little coaxing to persuade him to perform his work as 
willingly as ever. This treatment finally cured him, and 
he has never balked once since the second month I owned 
him, and is to-day one of the best working-horses for 
miles around. So much for kindness to dumb beasts: 



and I believe it is invariably the shortest road to the 
desired end in the management of all animals. 

The season opened very stormy, and it really appeared 
as if it was all rain and no clear days for over a month. 
Plants grew, and weeds grew more ; everything grew very 
fast, and grew vigorously. I laid out two hundred dol- 
lars in manure, and worked hard to get everything in 
order, in the face of the weather, and all other discourage- 
ments. These frequent showers not only dampened the 
ground, but also dampened my feelings very much. All 
things looked decidedly blue, and I felt very much like 
throwing up all I had undertaken. In conversing with 
the neighbors, I found sympathy ; for they all felt the same 
way. I was careful, however, to show no discouragement 
in their presence. 

Every cloud has its silver lining, they say, and soon 
April showers brought their career to an end, and old Sol 
once more bestowed upon us all his beauty, warming all 
things into life. Then began the fight with weeds, and a 
sharp contest it was. A week's work brought me so little 
headway that I persuaded myself to go straightway and 
hire two men for thirty dollars a month and board. With 
horse, cultivator, and hoe we soon made sad havoc among 
the weeds, and as often as the whole farm had been gone 
over the process was repeated, until everything was be- 
yond the power of injury within the reach of weeds. The 
more I stirred the ground, the more rapidly all things 



AND HOW I MADE IT. * 97 

grew. New work came in by way of staking, and tying 
up the tomato vines, for already their slender support 
yielded under their own weight. This was all work and 
expense for some weeks ; but, with the opening of June, 
lettuce became fit for market, which must be furnished 
means of transportation, and many preparations for other 
coming crops engrossed my attention. I had no lack of 
sufficient ways to occupy my whole mind, and yet at no 
time felt overworked. Out-door exercise continued to 
agree with me perfectly, and was more plainly to be seen 
in its effect upon my health, weight, and appetite. Summer 
days came as a respite to the cold and dreary days of winter, 
which seemed to be enjoyed even by the birds, for their 
musical notes always caught my ear first in the morning 
and when the day passed into night. 
7 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CLOSE OP THIRD TEAR — TRIAL-BALANCE. 

It will be unnecessary for me again to mention the 
details of the work and growth of niy crops during the 
summer, for they were not materially changed in the 
method of their growing, nor was there any difference in 
the nature of work required, although it was greater in 
amount, and required more labor to accomplish it as 
efficiently. Reviewing my work from the first of Sep- 
tember, I found I had been to a considerable expense, 
from moving and providing new stock and necessaries, 
which went to expense account, and all tending to reduce 
the actual amount of profits. The amount of cash I had 
commenced with was more t^an exhausted in those out- 
lays, and which in coming years would stand to the credit 
of income, if I met with similar success. Among these ex- 
pense may be named the first payment upon my new 
place. The house, although needing repairs, had been 
allowed to remain unimproved, except so far as my own 
labor was brought into requisition to make it comfortable. 
My greenhouse and verbena cuttings were an actual out- 

9S 



FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR. 99 

lay, as well as my horses and live stock, — which would 
not again have to be supplied, — an entire new outfit of 
tools for my work, a few household articles needed to 
make a comfortable abiding-place in-doors, and the 
necessity of a house-keeper, — all of which tended to swell 
the expense account. You who are married might do 
much better ; but, as I lived a life of single blessedness, I 
was compelled to pay for this blessed privilege. With 
my winter work I had been fully satisfied. My verbenas 
succeeded and multiplied plenteously, and another winter 
I was disposed to make verbenas a specialty. The stock 
of other flowering winter-plants had increased nearly two- 
fold, and yielded me a better return than ever, although 
some were lost entirely. My facilities for market, as 
before stated, were of the best. Some extra expenses 
were incurred, however, in the way of commissions to the 
agent in the city to whom I consigned my produce to be 
sold. The prices given below are the net amounts received 
after deducting freight, commissions, and other expenses. 

A difficulty, not before known to me, was experienced in 
the negligence of my agent in not returning all the bas- 
kets in which the produce was forwarded to market ; but 
I learn that it is no unusual case, and that all shippers 
make an allowance for it, calculating that if half the 
baskets are returned, they are doing well. My first ship- 
ment was three thousand head of lettuce, which reached 
an early market, and brought me ten cents net. A sub- 



100 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

sequent shipment of four thousand head brought seven 
cents. They had the good fortune to all reach market in 
prime order, and thus met a ready sale and good prices. 
The market soon after became liberally supplied, and 
two subsequent shipments closed up my crop, and brought 
four and two cents each, of two and one thousand each, 
notwithstanding they were more mature and better in 
every way. My lettuce crop was hardly disposed of, and 
the ground cleared up, before my attention was directed 
to the gathering and shipping of tomatoes. The 
plants having been pretty well advanced when transplanted 
to the open ground, they came forward quite rapidly. 
The soil had been made very rich, producing a very good 
effect, both in the early crop and the quantity. The yield 
was about four hundred baskets, which were put up in the 
usual peck basket, and brought prices ranging from one 
dollar and twenty to fifty cents per basket. The balance of 
the crop I sold on the vines for twenty-five dollars. Suc- 
ceeding tomatoes in prompt rotation came the cabbages, 
bringing from four dollars to two dollars per hundred. 
Potatoes were a later crop, and the average price received 
per bushel was one dollar and fifty cents. I had planted 
a very early variety, which brought a very fair price for 
the times. At the present writing, potatoes do not reach 
these figures, and the price received was owing to the 
state of the market consequent upon the demands of the 
war then raging. The following recapitulation of my 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 



101 



year's work will not only be interesting, but will bear 
verification : — 



Cash on hand beginning of the yeai 






. $1,454 27 


Sales of flowers, .... 




679 80 


" " verbena plants 






. 1,350 00 


" " lettuce, . . . 






680 00 


" " tomatoes, . 






1,155 00 


" " cabbages, . 






164 00 


" " potatoes, .... 






600 00 


Inventory of greenhouse, 






600 00 


" " stock in verbenas, 






450 00 


" " " in tools, etc., 






250 00 


" " live stock, . 






300 00 


" " household goods, 






170 00 
$7,853 


DISBURSEMENTS. 


Paid on land, $200 00 


" for moving and freight, . 






20 00 


" " household furniture, 






175 00 


" " salary to house-keeper, 






150 00 


" " expense of table, 






416 00 


" " clothing and incidentals, . 






250 00 


Cost of greenhouse, 






628 00 


" " running the same, 






573 00 


" " seed, etc., . 






15 00 


" " span of horses and harness 






250 00 


" " wagon, 






95 00 


•« " farm implements, 






21 00 


" " cow, pig, and hens, . 






115 00 


11 " manure, .... 






200 00 



Carried over, 



$3,108 00 $7,853 07 



102 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

Brought up, $3,108 00 $7,853 07 

Cost of two men three months, . . . 180 00 

" " 200 new baskets, .... 40 00 

3,328 00 

Amount of assets, 4,525 07 

Deduct amount on hand beginning of year, . . . 1,454 27 

Profit over outlays, 3,070 80 

Adding payment on land, ♦ « $200 00 

" expense of greenhouse, . . . 628 00 

" " of stock, .... 846 00 

1,674 00 

Net profit for third year, $4,744 80 

At first sight these figures look rather large, and I 
dare say that many, upon reaching this point of my story, 
will put it down as unreasonable and improbable. It is 
not at all fabulous to me, for I worked side by side with 
these figures, and I know the work was worthy of the 
result, and even more. 

System was one of my great plans in all my work, and 
my account-book was brought out and entered up as regu- 
larly as I wound my watch or nightly retired to rest, and 
thus accurately kept. These figures are bona fide,, and 
copied from that same account-book. Allowing, if you 
please, one half of all these to be true, there is still left 
sufficient evidence of success to guarantee any person to 
engage in a similar enterprise. 

I had opened my new farm just at the close of the war, 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 103 

when prices had scarcely began to take a downward course, 
and this, together with promptness in reaching an early 
market, secured me fair prices, and as quoted. "Oh, 
war prices were profitable ; but it could not be done now," 
it may be said. It may or it may not be so ; but indica- 
tions at the present writing are strongly in favor of the 
latter. 

It would be far from my desire to overstate any case or 
probability, rather preferring to underrate, if anything; 
and I have tried to make clear my statements. I know 
there is a great tendency among the reading public to slur 
at such statements, and I can only ask an impartial 
judgment. 



CHAPTER XV. 

CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE CONTRASTED — ONIONS — HOW RAISED — 
PROFITS OF CROPS. 

After a successful harvest I had no reason for not 
-congratulating myself. I was now fully established in 
the country genuine, and was favorably situated to view 
its advantages with its disadvantages. As a place of 
abode, the country is, without doubt, very pleasant, and far 
superior to the city during the summer months ; but is 
turned from with disgust by many, when fall and winter 
storms set in. It is true, muddy roads and gravel walks are 
not equal to nice stone pavements ; but it cannot be ex- 
pected that we shall have everything just as we like it. 
The country is not adapted to that class of never-stay-at- 
home-people of an evening, especially during winter 
nights. Home endearments are very sweet to me, and I 
think should be to all well-disposed persons who wish to' 
lead a moral life ; therefore a winter's sojourn in the 
country was equally as pleasant as the summer. Among 
the fair sex I could really distinguish no difference ; for 
they all appeared to flutter as fine regalias as ever I wit- 

104 



FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR. 105 

nessed in the city, and there was no lack for enjoyment or 
sociability, while the fresh country air, accompanied with 
healthy exercise, cleared them from the pale and ghostly 
appearance so prevalent among our city lassies, and im- 
parted a ruddy hue to their cheeks without the aid of cos- 
metics. The advantages of society I consider are vastly 
superior ; for here acquaintances are readily acquired, 
while better opportunity is afforded for knowing the true 
character of all with whom you associate. Every one 
knows their neighbor, which is a singular contrast to city 
life. For several years I have lived in a city, and not 
known my next-door neighbor, or anything appertaining 
to him, although a brick wall is all that intervenes. 

Necessity of much walking also gives great opportunity 
for acquiring that most healthful exercise ; and of walks, 
both pleasant and recreative, we have an abundance 
stretching far out into the country, over green hills and 
dales, through lovely fields and shady groves, with plenty 
to admire and instruct. Rambles are frequent, and pro- 
ductive of much good cheer, causing the heavy step to 
grow buoyant and the sad . heart to be braced with pleas- 
ure. We had no hydrant, with ever-flowing Croton or 
gas ; but a deep well supplied such pure cold water at all 
times as to obviate the necessity of that indispensable 
city luxury, ice. For light, we have the modern lamps, 
which are far more pleasant to work or read by, although 
not quite as convenient. 



106 FIVE THOUSAND A TEAR; 

We had four mails every day, and morning papers from 
the city were received at an early hour, while the evening 
papers were on hand as soon as the day's work was com- 
pleted. Of other reading we had an abundance. I had 
retained my membership to the Mercantile Library, and I 
was in the city at least once a week, and found it no in- 
convenience to change books. Many other reasons could 
be brought to show wherein country life contrasts favor- 
bly with city privileges. Above all things, the great 
sociability of the people made the most favorable impres- 
sion upon me, and through this source I derived much 
valuable information, and was persuaded by them to turn 
my attention to the great crop of this section, in which 
every one, to a greater or less extent, seemed to be en- 
gaged. There is but one place in the United States 
where more onions are raised than in this section, and 
that is Danvers, Mass., where it has been stated they 
raise two hundred thousand bushels a year. The New 
York market is principally supplied from this section, and 
it would be a low estimate to state the yield of this town 
to be one hundred and fifty thousand bushels a year. It 
is no unusual case for farmers about town to raise from 
four to six hundred bushels per acre, bringing prices from 
two to eight dollars per barrel of two bushels. One of our 
most wealthy citizens commenced here twenty-five years 
ago, on two rods square of ground, and raised as high as 
eight acres of this product a season. 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 107 

Prices ranged higher during the war than ever before 
or since ; yet at fifty cents a bushel onions remain a very 
profitable crop. In the cultivation of onions, the first 
and most important item is the seed and its condition. In 
other seeds we can readily judge from the appearance 
whether it will yield good ; but with onion seed it is per- 
fectly impossible. Seed over a year old is worthless, and 
much of the one-year-old seed proves poor. After select- 
ing the most solid, large, deep, and bright seed, it can be 
further tested by putting into water, when the light seed 
will rise to the top, and the good will sink. The soil best 
adapted for the purpose should be of a deep, loamy nature, 
and have been planted with potatoes or corn two previous 
seasons. When the ground has been cleared of the crop 
in the fall, then prepare it for onions, by putting on 
twenty loads of well-rotted manure, fifty bushels to the 
load ; plough it in deep, and let it remain" during the win- 
ter. Hog manure is the best, but any kind of strong 
manure will do. If ashes are to be had, put on one to two 
hundred bushels per acre in addition. Bone dust is ap- 
plied as a manure in many cases. The ground should be 
prepared in the spring for the seed, as soon as it is dry, 
by harrowing with tooth and brush until it is level and 
mellow ; but not too much so, for onions will bottom better 
if not too mellow. From three to four pounds of seed per 
acre are required, which is best sown in drills. Two 
or more rows can be sown at once by use of an onion- 



108 



planter, which is very simply made, at an expense of three 
or four dollars. The rows should be perfectly straight, 
and twelve inches apart. To cover them, take a hoe, 
setting in well, and shove along over the rows. As soon 
as they come up far enough to be seen plainly com- 
mences the hoeing and weeding, which must be con- 
tinued as long as there are weeds to be seen. Crops can 
be raised just as well year after year on the same ground, 
for they require no rotation of crops, but good manuring, 
as the first year. If the ground is free from weeds when 
the crop is gathered, so much the better for next year's 
crop. When most of the onions get ripe, they are pulled 
and spread on the ground to dry for a day or two, when 
they are raked into windrows, and when a little damp at 
night, put in small heaps until there is no moisture left in 
the tops. When a dry day comes they are again spread 
out to dry, and, when properly dry, cast into the barn. 
They can be kept spread from two to three feet deep, if 
they are well cured, and placed where plenty of fresh air 
can circulate through them, until very cold weather, when 
they must be kept from freezing too much. To prepare 
them for market they are topped and put in barrels, which 
are sent down by the market-boats and sold, the barrels 
being returned to the owner. The expense of raising an 
acre of onions is placed as a fair average, at one hundred 
and fifteen dollars. A half crop, — say four hundred bush- 
els, — at fifty cents, would bring two hundred dollars. 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 109 

This is a low estimate, both of yield and price. The 
average yield about here is about six hundred bushels per 
acre, and the price varies from one to two dollars per bushel. 
With proper attention, and large drafts upon the bank of 
muck and manure, a few acres of onions will increase the 
deposits in the bank of exchange by a large percentage. 
No crop seems to be devoid of its enemies. With onions 
we have what is called the onion-fly, for want of a better 
name, which sometimes commits serious depredations. 
Sprinkling of ashes is resorted to somewhat ; but does not 
have the desired effect of exterminating them. Steeping 
seeds slightly in salt brine, before sowing, has been strongly 
recommended as a sure cure for the havoc of the insect 
supposed to be deposited in the seed. I cannot vouch for 
its success however. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

RESULTS OP FOURTH AND FIFTH TEARS — AGRICULTURAL BOOKS AND 
PAPERS — ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF AGRICULTURE. 

At the close of the third year, I came to the conclusion 
that in future I should confine my winter labors entirely 
to the culture of the verbena. In accordance with this 
decision,- 1 disposed of my whole stock of flowering plants 
and bulbs, which by their increase brought more than 
double what I had paid for them three years previous ; 
besides covering all losses by disease and other causes. 
I disposed of them by advertising in the agricultural 
papers, and filled most of the orders by mail, — Congress 
having made provision for carrying small parcels in that 
manner. After all expenses were paid, I had just three- 
hundred and forty dollars in hand for my stock, which 
was at once invested in enlarging my greenhouses by the 
addition of two more, the same size as the others. The 
verbenas had been transplanted to open ground in the 
spring, as ornamental flowers for my yard and borders 
From these, I gathered a large quantity of cuttings, and 
entered into the winter's work of the fourth year in prop- 
agating. 

110 



FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR. Ill 

By spring I had overcome many misfortunes more than 
ever before experienced, and succeeded in marketing five 
thousand baskets of verbenas, netting clear of expenses, 
three thousand one hundred and twenty-eight dollars. 

I had paid up, during the winter, for my house and 
land ; had refitted my house outside and inside, and built 
on another story with a Mansard roof; had repainted it 
throughout ; had also bought a piece of ground of ten 
acres, down the road about one quarter of a mile, which 
was the nearest to my place that I could purchase. My 
object was to cultivate corn, potatoes, and other products 
for house use, and for keeping my live stock. In the 
spring, I planted the four and a half acres adjoining the 
house with onions. This necessitated the hiring of two 
men, by the year, to assist me. From this plot I raised 
seventeen hundred bushels of onions, from which I 
received a net return of three thousand two hundred and 
eleven dollars, the prices received varying from two to 
three dollars per barrel. Without going into details, my 
net returns this year amounted to four thousand nine hun- 
dred and eighty-seven dollars, which you will see was but 
little short of five thousand dollars, after a four years' 
trial. The whole amount of my worldly goods at this 
time, including stock, real estate, and cash, was eight 
thousand and fifty-seven dollars. The following year 
my profits were not as large, nor the market as good; 
but not having the expenses of the previous year, my 



112 



balance stood about the same the fifth year. I say about 
the same ; but, to be accurate, it was just fifteen dollars 
more, making my income just five thousand and two 
dollars and fifty cents. 

I continue to make a specialty of these two crops, — 
verbenas for winter and onions for summer culture, — 
and find sufficient work to keep me fully occupied and 
amply remunerated. I spend my evenings at home, 
reading and improving my mind, while my daily labors 
bring me beneficial and healthy exercise. When I first 
entered this business, as an experiment, my wejght stood 
at one hundred and twenty-seven pounds. At present I 
average one hundred and eighty-two pounds, and am fleshy 
enough to be an alderman. 

Having drawn my story out already much longer than 
I had intended, I am forced to bring it hastily to a close, 
and, in looking over what I have written, I can see how 
feebly my points have been explained. 

My story is given for the benefit of all who will read, 
hoping, however, to throw out a light which will shine 
to advantage for some who will go and do likewise ; and in 
closing I would reiterate the same statement with which I 
started out, namely, in a word, that a man with brains, 
and nothing but his hands, can commence and cultivate a 
small piece of ground, and, by industry and determinatioo 
may, year by year, not only provide an ample home, but, 
with frugality and perseverance, may accumulate in the 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 118 

savings-bank that which will be the nucleus of a small for- 
tune. It does not matter how this is done ; some prefer 
one way, some another ; kit this road I have followed, 
and from my experience can safely recommend it to 
others, and it is open for more than ever will enter 
upon it. 

All men who have acquired wealth will concur in say- 
ing that their hardest work was in accumulating the first 
clear one thousand dollars. I have endeavored to lead 
you carefully through the starting-points, knowing that 
your own experience would be of greater aid in after years 
than aught I could write or advise you. Of course there 
are those who look upon the tilling of the soil as a low oc- 
cupation ; and every profession has its -enemies as well 
as its advocates. Such have yet a great veil to be with- 
drawn from their eyes. I can say it is not degrading, but, 
on the contrary, one of the most useful, honest, pure, 
noble, and elevating callings in which man can embark ; 
and in this statement I can bring hundreds of our best 
and able citizens to substantiate me. After perusing 
this work, you may say, " Well, if that is true it is an 
exceptional case," and ask, " If it is true, why do not all 
farmers become rich? " In reply I ask, Can you show 
me an industrious and systematic farmer who is not grow- 
ing rich ? There are plenty of dull heads and slovenly 
men who attempt farming, and fail the same as in every 
other business ; but they are no criterion. Secondly, 



114 



allowing that farmers as a rule only did one half as well, 
would not their profits even then be an argument and en- 
couragement ? He who makes haste makes waste ; you 
may conceive that some day you will fall upon some 
lucky speculation which will open to you the doors of the 
mine of wealth much easier and quicker; but, be assured, 
your chances are just one in a thousand. Take the steady- 
going man, who plods on regularly but surely, and yearly 
puts away a small portion, and he will be sure to win. 
The great beauty of a farm life is that you are not sub- 
jected to a constant outlay to live. A good farmer never 
buys anything he can raise himself. In other occupations 
you have not this advantage, and you must be daily lay- 
ing out small sums for expenses and sustenance of life ; 
while the farmer has just as many luxuries and saves just 
this amount you spend to get what he enjoys. 

It is this practice of constant saving, by a rigid and well- 
planned economy, that brings in more money than the 
deep-laid schemes and conniving plans. If you never 
save, you will never have the wherewith for future use, 
make as much money as. you like. My final word of 
encouragement is to you, young man, or young couples 
just starting out in life, whatever be your occupation, do 
not despise a small beginning, if it be honest, and save to 
the uttermost, and you cannot fail to become rich. 

If you think there is another or easier way, you have 
yet to learn that we live in an age when golden apples 



AND HOW I MADE IT 115 

cannot be had for the picking. If you would make your 
way and home independent in this world, you must needs 
work for it. If you follow my experience, and adopt the 
same course, you will succeed. It is assuredly the most 
healthy and beneficial ; the most easily acquired and the 
surest road to success, while the calling is decidedly the 
most honorable. You are the producer, without whom 
the world cannot exist ; we must have food to eat, and 
clothes to wear, so long as we live. Withdraw the pro- 
ducers from the world, and a sorry figure the people re- 
maining would cut. Ruin and desolation would run wild, 
and miseries untold would exist. 

In social science we find all trades dovetail together 
for the general good of the community, — all necessary 
for the promotion of its welfare, — yet when necessity 
demands, there are those which can be dispensed with 
better than others. But last of all can the producer be 
spared, for he holds the key to the existence of millions. 
Tell me, then," such a position is not honorable ; that it is 
not a noble calling. Then, I say, go back to the rudi- 
ments of a civilized education, and be taught like a child. 

I may remark, by way of advice, and not because of 
any interest I have in them beyond the promulgation of 
good and practical information for the benefit of my fellow- 
men, that every person should become a subscriber to 
standard agricultural papers, for they are of great value 
both to practical and amateur cultivators. I do not pro- 



116 



pose to influence any person in the favor of one paper to 
the prejudice of another, for all are good. My favorites 
are the "American Agriculturist" and "Moore's Rural 
New Yorker." I have also quite a large library of 
agricultural works on all subjects; but those which I 
most prize I can recommend most strongly. But your 
own judgment should be exercised in your purchases as 
to those books best adapted to the particular branch of 
agriculture you propose to adopt. As books of general 
reference, I find "Todd's Young Farmer's Manual" to 
supply every need. It consists of two volumes, entitled 
respectively "The Farm and Workshop," and "How 
to make Farming Pay." For books in detail, a new 
work, just published by Peter Henderson, entitled " Flori- 
culture," supersedes, in my mind, anything before offered 
on the subject of flowers. " Gardening for Profit," by 
the same author, " Small Fruit Culturist," by Fuller, 
and a series of works by Jacques, are worthy of careful 
perusal and reference. A book written some years ago 
by a gentleman, formerly a printer in Philadelphia, and 
who adopted farming with success, entitled " Ten Acres 
Enough," is a very good book, and full of encourage- 
ment. 

I cannot fail to notice two little pamphlets recently 
published in Boston, — the one called "My Ten-Rod 
Farm; or, $2,000 a Year," and another called "Farm- 
ing by Inches," — which I think are books both of 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 117 

pleasure and practical value for any one to read who has 
any idea of cultivating the soil in any capacity. The 
first shows what a poor woman can do, while the latter 
will tend to encourage many a broken-down book-keeper, 
or failed tradesman, who looks out into the dreary waste 
to see how he can repair his fallen fortunes and am- 
bition. Gentle reader, I leave you to draw your own 
conclusions from my little book, and whatever you think 
of doing, I wish you success, and remember that what 
man has done can be done again. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



CONCLUSION. 



It is evident to every person, who has been thrown upon 
their own resources in life, that the grand desideratum 
of life is money. How to get it is the all-absorbing 
question which so perplexes and provokes all mankind. To 
get money honestly, first for the immediate wants of our- 
selves and families, and secondly for our future when the 
sands of life are nearly run out, claims the devotion of a 
moral man's first years. To be rich is the summit for 
which so many scramble without looking well to their 
foothold, and from which, in an evil hour, in a moment, 
as in the twinkling of an eye, they are cast down, and all 
their bright visions of prosperity pass silently away as the 
morning dew beneath the sun, and they find themselves 
plunged into the deep abyss of despair and destruction, 
with blighted hopes and a discouraged ambition as the 
only fruits of all their labors. With a large capital, keen 
and shrewd business tact, one will succeed where twenty 
fail in the large competition of our cities. A man with- 
out capital has still less chances of success in any occupa- 

118 



FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 119 

tion he undertakes, and therefore thousands must give 
their services for wages to those who have capital. There 
are to-day, by actual statistics, in the city of New York 
alone, ten thousand young men without employment ; 
while as many more are living upon a meagre salary, 
which barely provides the food they eat. Their home is 
probably the attie of some one of those abominable dens 
called boarding-houses, and thus deprived of all the influ- 
ences of home or a higher life, what wonder is it that the 
enchantments of gorgeous billiard-halls and the compan- 
ionship of the corner beer-shop should lure them away 
from the paths of virtue into idle habits and dissipation, 
which is the fallow ground for every kind of wicked- 
ness. Is it surprising that the morning papers are 
daily recording such startling sensations of high-handed 
crime and wickedness, when the devil has such a school 
of educated persons to draw from ? Who is to blame for 
all of this ? To a great extent the employers, who will 
not pay their employes wages commensurate with the 
necessities of life ; and not having the means of otherwise 
obtaining the good influences of a higher circle, they 
give themselves up to spend what little they do have in 
vile and profane pleasures, and are thus left to go down to 
ruin, and are finally forced to get money dishonestly when 
unable to get it honestly. Many a high and noble-minded 
individual has thus passed his life away and been laid in 
the Potter's field, not even mourned for by his late com- 



120 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

panions in vice. Just so long as this continues, the rich 
will become more rich and the poor will become more poor. 
The great greed for money drowns out all conscientious- 
ness and benevolence in our merchants, and it is useless to 
look to them for a reform. The young men must rise up 
and take the reins in their own hands, and cast them- 
selves off from being longer serfs to such a people. No 
relief will come until our young men become educated to 
understand that they shall withhold their services for 
themselves. 

In the face of all these facts young men from the 
country, who have good homes and good opportunities for 
becoming active, honest, and thriving citizens, are daily 
seeking to make an exchange to their own injury, and the 
oppression of the already overcrowded city. Thousands 
now here, who have passed through the fiery ordeals and 
struggles of poverty in a city, are ready to flee to the 
country, to any place that will give them an oppor- 
tunity for a life of usefulness to themselves ;" while thou- 
sands more, without capital, are revolving in their minds, 
without coming to any satisfactory conclusion, what they 
can do to make a start for themselves in the world. 

One of the greatest evils with which our large cities are 
afflicted is the constant acquisition of persons from the 
country, coming hither under the prevailing idea that 
easier and more lucrative employment may be found. 
The largest number of our foreign emigrants also prefer 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 121 

to remain here and work, carrying a hod rather than work 
for themselves. Resident fathers are raising families, and 
their sons must be furnished employment, even if they 
have to pay employers for taking them and teaching them 
in the routine of business ; and this latter plan is becoming 
more and more prevalent every year. In the face of such 
facts, how can a young man, dependent upon his own 
labor, manage to succeed? Unless a young man has 
a friend in the city with whom he can board, and 
make a salary of one hundred dollars supply his other 
wants the first year, he cannot even make a beginning. 
The very least for which one can live in the city is 
ten dollars a week, and that only of the poorest fare and 
accommodations. It is more than useless for young men 
to continue crowding into the city, for they are not bene- 
fited thereby either financially or morally. 

The very fact of overcrowding the city reduces wages, 
and thus puts money in the pockets of the employers. 
For, the more there is to hire out, the less a man can be 
engaged for, and every employer will take the man who 
costs him the least for his services, thereby reducing his 
expenses, and increasing his profits. If you are out of 
employment, do not come to the city, for there is no rea- 
sonable hope of your succeeding. Thousands in the city 
of New York are to-day out of work, and suifering for the 
necessaries of life ; they are willing and able to work, 
but there is no work for them. You may not think so, 



122 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR; 

yet it is true, that your own country home furnishes more 
ample scope for your abilities than any city. There are 
hundreds here to compete with you in whatever trade or 
vocation you may cast your lot, and with experience in all 
the machinations of trade, with which you have no knowl- 
edge. It is only those of the most extreme shrewdness 
and ability that make any headway at all. The tempta- 
tions and corruptions of a city life are unbounded. If 
you are a farmer, continue to labor on, and lay the foun- 
dation for your future home in your own country town. 
It is growing to be an honor to be a farmer, while its remu- 
neration is always sure. Agriculture is now becoming a 
science. If you have no trade, by all means secure 
one at once ; so that when all else fail, there will be 
some one thing in which you are skilled, and by which 
you can make an honest living. If you are already a 
mechanic or journeyman, in any branch or vocation, you 
will find it equally true that the country is a better field 
for your labors. Should you aspire to positions of honor 
and trust, which are within the gift of the people, work 
your way up among your friends, where you are known. 
It is more easily achieved, and of far greater honor when 
thus obtained, than when purchased by passing through 
the fiery ordeal of knavery and trickery, as is so often the 
case in our large cities. 

The field for usefulness lies open before your very eyes. 
You have not one mile to journey toward it. If you are 



AND nOW I MADE IT. 123 

a mechanic or journeyman, you can live where you arc in- 
clined. Where your work is, there you may live. You will 
not find it so in our cities. All our large manufacturers, 
of whatever class, have their manufactory in some country 
village, giving them more room for less money. Notice 
and follow their wisdom thus displayed. If you choose to 
cultivate the soil, get or hire a small place, commence, and 
be sure and have something to sell at all times. Raise it, 
make it, or in some way produce yourself, both for your 
own use, and for others. Do not depend upon others to 
produce for you. If you are too far from a good market, 
get near one, and follow their maxims, and I am sure you 
will succeed. 

I have made these statements from a large and extended 
experience. I have run a complete race of hardships in 
struggling to keep myself above water, and at last have 
found my vocation. I have been surprised that I had not 
arrived at so simple a method before ; but it has not 
equalled that I have, when I sec young men so foolishly led 
away by a blind hope of making a fortune if they could 
only get into the city. I am satisfied there is much more 
room than ever will be occupied outside of the city, and 
that in the city everything is more than full. If, then, 
you choose to heed my advice, and take warning, you will 
find ample scope for your abilities in your own country 
home ; and I feel warranted in saying, that in so doing 
you will achieve honor and success. 



124 FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR ; 

If you will throw your whole soul into farming, with 
the determination to succeed by it, you will achieve 
success. Only treat it just as well as any other 
business, and you will succeed. The earth is a bank, 
into which you can make your deposits with a certainty 
of a larger percentage in return than in any stock or 
mercantile investment, while there is no fear of defalca- 
tion or robbery. There is no fear of a sudden financial 
crisis to sweep away all your capital. Mother Earth con- 
tinues to bear and grow vegetation, with which to replenish 
your treasury through all the financial storms and revul- 
sions just the same, while the agricultural press and 
inventive genius of the people are daily ennobling and 
aggrandizing the profession, increasing knowledge, and 
aiding to lighten the labors attendant upon the cultivation 
of the soil. The farmer is confident of his living, if noth- 
ing more, while his chances for success are far superior ; 
and while he is'privileged to rest his weary body in the pure 
God-given air, so promotive of health, he is still conscious 
his labors are not fruitless, and that what he has sown 
is growing while he sleeps. The world is dependent upon 
the producer for its life. If he fails, the world wanes. 
People must live, and some one must produce that they 
may live ; and in this noble calling we have been privi- 
leged to enter. 

A visit to some of our famous markets, such as Washing- 
ton Market, of New York City, cannot fail to produce a 



AND HOW I MADE IT. 125 

correct impression of the great demands of life, and how 
they are supplied, as well as the grand position of him who 
grows the supplies. How every variety of living vegeta- 
tion may be seen, and plainly watched to the place of its 
consumption, with a rapidity which indicates unmistakably 
that the demand is clearly beyond the supply. 

For a moment consider the statistics of the increase of 
population in New York city for the last ten years, all of 
which are consumers, and compare it with the increase of 
producers, and you will find the former nearly double in 
ratio that of the latter every year. Increase of inhabi- 
tants, both by natural birth and by foreign emigration, all 
of whom cling fondly to the city and all its enchantments, 
go to swell the ranks of consumers. These things are in- 
evitable, and must be prepared for, and so long as these 
facts remain unchanged, there will be no glut in the mar- 
ket, and prices of all products will hold good and amply 
repay the producer. What is true of New York city is 
only too true of every other. 



THE END. 



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